Siege Mentality
by Insomniac Luddite
Summary: Palantiri, modems, girls in Elrond’s bedroom, flash floods, feather dusters, Erestor fainting, catatonic Thranduil, whipped cream, cruelty to Mary Sues, silly names, four half-witted Halflings and one irritable Istar.
1. Bruinen

**Siege Mentality**

**Disclaimer:** This world and these characters are J.R.R. Tolkien's not mine, except for a few Mary Sues, whom I am sure he would have no wish to claim. I am merely borrowing them for my own amusement, and will return them once I have finished playing with them, although Elrond may have a few scuff marks *evil grin*

**Rating:** PG-13.

**Summary:** Palantiri, modems, girls in Elrond's bedroom, flash floods, feather dusters, Erestor fainting, catatonic Thranduil, whipped cream, cruelty to Mary Sues, silly names, four half-witted Halflings and one irritable Istar.

~*~

An acute observer would have noticed the evil glint in the eyes of Legolas Thranduilion as he looked down at the girl in his arms. Unfortunately for her, Leilialianth was not an acute observer. She could not even pass for one on a good day with a following wind.

"Oh Leggy darling, I love you so much," she cooed, fluttering her eyelashes at him in a way she secretly believed made her look charming and innocent, but in reality looked more like someone suffering from painful conjunctivitis.

"And I you, sweetums." Legolas' lecherous grin became a little wider. "Would you like to go somewhere more private?"

He found a convenient patch of grass by the Bruinen, and was just congratulating himself on another successful conquest – not that conquest was really the word when the girl had deliberately fallen over a log into his arms – when a voice interrupted him.

"Oh Mandos, not again!" He glanced up from the attention he was paying to the lacings of the girl's bodice to see Glorfindel standing there. "I just thought to myself that it would be really nice to spend an afternoon strolling by the Bruinen while Elrond does whatever he does in his rooms for hours on end, and what do I find? The Silvan princeling with yet another daft girl. Well, what do you call yourself, child?"

The human – for such she was despite the points rather inexpertly glued to her ears – lifted her chin. 

"I don't know who you are, but I am Leilialianth, and I will be Leggy's wife."

At this point the hero of Gondolin collapsed in a fit of laughter.

"That's a good one, Legolas." He wiped the tears from his eyes. "Do they all believe the tales of an abusive childhood you spin and your promises of marriage?"

The girl looked affronted.

"No, he is mine, and thee shalt not make me break up with him," she tried out the language she remembered rather dimly from Romeo and Juliet. "Tell him it is not so, Leggy."

But the prince had joined in Glorfindel's merriment, and the girl flounced off into the woods, wondering if she might have better luck with boyfriends who only reached her waist. 

"Perhaps Frody-kins will give me the Ring as a present, and that'll show Legs."

Legolas watched her departure with amusement.

"Oh well, there will be another soon enough."

"Where do you get these doxies?" Glorfindel inquired between chuckles.

"Here and there, here and there." Legolas was not ready to give up his secret yet, especially not to one as dashing as the Slayer of Balrogs. "Why? Do you want one?"

"Spare me, child. My mind would be tested to its limits by their rather … ah … interesting use of Westron."

They parted, Legolas wandering aimlessly among the trees, while Glorfindel returned to the house, and, with reluctance, to his tasks.

~*~

Elrond glanced up at him as he entered the study, and waved an object distractedly between the tips of his long fingers.

"This passes all understanding," he snapped. "I found another of those … those … girls hiding in here. Apparently she was so bereft of all sense that she believed the these rooms belonged to Thranduil's feckless son."

The seneschal sank gracefully into a chair.

"Which sort was it this time?"

"Oh, she wished to bring her powers as Princess of Silverbirch-Wood to the aid of the Fellowship," he sighed, and slumped a little. "I have never been so tempted by the power of the One as now, mellon-iaur, for it could be used to rid Middle-earth of these wretched creatures."

"Surely you have other means of dissuading them?" Glorfindel inquired with a glint in his eyes.

Elrond fiddled with the Ring on his left hand absent-mindedly, its brilliant stone catching the light and casting sparks of blue onto the paperwork.

"Aye. Perhaps there might be a flash-flood," he mused. "Not fatal, but who would mind if a few of them were carried to the coast? If I remember correctly from my youth, Círdan can be very inventive in dealing with mischief-makers." A wide grin lit his face.

His friend leant forward to grasp the object which Elrond still held.

"What is this?" he held it up to the light, examining the flesh-coloured lump with distaste.

"Oh yes, I forgot to tell you," the Peredhel smirked. "The girl was so anxious to depart that she forgot one of her ears."

~*~

That night, peace reigned in the valley in the foothills of the Misty Mountains, apart from a flood which swept away a horde of girls lurking on the banks of the Bruinen. Soon the Shipwright was to have some exceptionally unwilling workers to scrub barnacles from fishing-boats. No one is attractive covered in seaweed and smelling strongly of haddock, even if her eyes are indigo.


	2. Bedroom Surprises

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Two.**

This was the calm before the storm. Imladris had returned to its usual serenity for several days, but Elrond could feel the tension building in the air like lightning until the hair at the nape of his neck stood on end. With a groan of acceptance, he abandoned his attempt to make out Gil-Estel and retreated to his chambers.

_*Perhaps I should have jumped into the sea after mother. I wonder what it is like to be a seagull?*_

The candles had guttered and died in their sconces, leaving the corridors of the Last Homely House in darkness except for the pallid glow of the waning moon, and even elven sight could not perceive everything. As he strode along, his robes whispering against the stone smoothed by generations of feet, he saw a flash of pale hair whip through the door of his room, and smiled softly, all cares suddenly falling away.

He entered his rooms, the soft light momentarily dazzling his eyes. What he saw when they adjusted appalled him.

"Get out! Get out!" he hollered so loudly that the windows rattled in their frames. The expression on Legolas' face was unrepentant as his companion tugged at the strange breeches which had slid from her hips. "What in the name of the Valar are you doing in my rooms?"

"Uh … uh …" Even the blond elf was at a loss for words, but the girl lifted her head from the bed and looked at the Lord of Imladris truculently.

"We like it here. Can't you go somewhere else until we've finished?"

As Elrond stared in stupefaction at such an absurd request. A pair of hands crept round his waist from behind and he stiffened at the touch, but the voice in his ear was familiar.

"Fear not, meleth-nîn. I have an idea."

With a movement as swift as the most cunning warrior, the elf-maiden had untied his kirtle and, pinning the arrogant human to the bed with a knee judiciously placed in the small of her back, was binding her hands ruthlessly. The dark-haired elf was almost as quick to grab Legolas' shoulder in a vice-like grip, but the younger elf was not to be daunted.

"Why, my lord, a foursome and the use of bonds, I had never imagined you to be so adventurous," he drawled. "May I be introduced to this charming lady?"

His choice of words was unfortunate, as Elrond's fingers dug into his shoulder deeply and the half-elf snarled, "Not while there is breath in my body."

He and the other guided the recalcitrant lovers from the suite and propelled them none too gently down the hallway to the rather less magnificent guestrooms which Legolas occupied.

"My dad will get you when I tell him about this," Jen announced suddenly, but she faltered a little under Elrond's withering stare. "Okay, so he's an accountant in Surrey, but he'll still get you."

The mysterious elf let out a peal of silvery laughter.

"It matters not, as long as you are not dull-witted enough to disturb our repose."

Arm in arm with the Master of Rivendell, she left the room.

Unluckily, peace was not to be theirs. Sneaking to the deserted kitchens, searching for a flask of wine, they encountered Erestor and Glorfindel lounging in an alcove. Both elves started upright, their eyes wide and their faces contorted into comical masks of confusion.

Erestor seemed about to suffer an apoplexy, so it was Glorfindel who spoke first.

"Cel … Cel…" his usual eloquence deserted him.  "Celebrían. Why are you here? Why are you not in Valinor?"

She blushed and clutched at Elrond's wide sleeve.

"There was no need for her to depart," her husband said calmly, quelling the nervous dancing in his stomach.

"But she was sorely wounded by the orcs and you could not heal her…" Erestor gulped, although he was still red in the face with consternation.

"Ah, yes," Elrond scuffed at the tiles as he spoke. "You must understand … you must see…"

Celebrían took pity in her lover and, ignoring her own embarrassment, began to explain, "I could no longer cope with my father."

One of Glorfindel's eyebrows shot up.

"What?"

"It was all 'Why do you not come and live at home, child?' 'I am sure that the air of Lothlórien will put more colour in your cheeks, Brí'. And then when I would not consent, all he would say was, 'I cannot imagine why you stay with that half-elf, my child. Surely you do not love him. Círdan would annul the marriage for you. Perhaps you have not yet met Haldir?'," she paused, out of breath. "I decided that this was the safest course of action."

"But what of the Lady Galadriel?"

"Oh, mother knows," the silver-haired elf laughed. "I would feel too much guilt if she did not understand enough to comfort him."

"I realise that you must remain hidden, but where have you been living?" Glorfindel was intrigued.

"Where else but in Elrond's chambers?" Celebrían's expression was innocent, but her eyes were alight with devilish amusement. At this latest confession, Erestor did indeed faint. The three remaining elves regarded his prone form with exasperation.

"Oh well." Glorfindel stooped and slung the slight body over his shoulder. "This explains many things. I shall see that Erestor recovers, and bid you goodnight."

He loped away, humming a salacious tune under his breath.

"It would be best if we retired to bed before we come across any more unpleasant surprises," the Noldo whispered in his wife's ear. She leaned into his touch.

"You are wise indeed, Elrond Peredhil," she murmured huskily. "If we bar the door against unwelcome intruders, we might share some rather more pleasant surprises…"

And so, between exchanged caresses, they barricaded themselves into their quarters with a solid oaken desk, a cloak-stand and a set of armour dating from the First Age.


	3. Allergies

                                                                                    **Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Three**

Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

Pennhothwen: Thanks for pointing out the mistakes.  I'm afraid they are the result of typing when I'm very tired.

This one goes to Nemis for guessing.

~*~*~*~*~

"Is it safe?"

"I don't know." Zelda pushed her friend back into the darkened storeroom, and peered round the corner, only to feel a tugging on her sleeve. "What is it now? You're messing up my top."

"Are you sure we should be doing this?"

The girl, whose hair was dyed an unattractive shade of yellow approximating a dandelion, rounded on the other.

"I'm going to do this, so you can quit whining, Sarah. You're only here because you fancy hobbits not Legolas," she snapped.

"Don't call me Sarah. I told you: I'm Peony, _Liz_." There was a crackle of barely restrained maliciousness in the girls's voice as she pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear.

"I'll call you Peony if you shut up right now … someone's coming." She pressed her eye to the narrow gap as foot-treads, too heavy to belong to any elf, approached along the corridor. Boromir passed scant inches away, and her lip curled in disgust.

They waited for what seemed like hours, crammed against an assortment of brooms and a pile of unwashed tunics, which Gil-galad had left there in the Second Age when he had forgotten where his room was. 

Finally it was all too much for their limited attention spans and they risked the trek to the rooms where they had seen Legolas disappear earlier. They tiptoed along the corridor, listening for every breath of air. Unfortunately, they were so busy listening and watching their feet that they did not notice the obstacle in their path until it was too late. They collided with it unceremoniously, reeling at the sudden solidity of the air. Strong hands grasped their arms to prevent them from falling, but the grip, although not cruel, was not kind, and certainly did not belong to a certain Sindarin prince. They looked up, and up still further, into a grim face framed by dark hair.

"'Scuse me, Mr Weird –Pointy-Eyebrows, but can you tell me where Leggy is?" the bolder of the pair ventured.

One of those eyebrows, fabled since the First Age when they had daunted even Kinslayers, rose higher still.

"I could tell you," Elrond's words were measured, as if he was pronouncing a great doom, "but I shall not."

He bent down and suddenly the duo found themselves suspended in midair, their arms pinned helplessly to their sides.

A face craned around a door a few yards away, silvery hair tumbling over bare shoulders.

"Have you returned with the cream from the kitchens, El-nîn?"

Celebrían caught sight of the struggling, squirming bundles captured under each of her husband's arms.

'I see that I must wait."

"I apologise most sincerely, my lady." Indeed, there was more than a trace of regret in his face. "But I am determined not to allow the haven which withstood the armies of Sauron fall to these … creatures."

~*~

It had been a long and tiring walk to deposit the girls on the road, especially when the one who kept muttering about furry feet had begun to screech improbable tales of love in a voice which would have made Maglor follow his brothers to Mandos. Elrond briefly considered the mass of administrative detail awaiting him in his office, but then a far more appealing prospect reared its head and he remembered why he had left the quiet sanctuary of his rooms. With hurried steps, he made his way to the kitchens.

Lindir stood in the middle of the vaulted room, screaming wildly, until the hobbit, who was trying to filch mushrooms from under a fast-moving knife, covered his ears and retreated beneath the table until his only his hairy feet stuck out, like inquisitive rabbits.

"What ails you?' the Master of Imladris inquired calmly, although he dreaded the answer.

"It … it …" Lindir spluttered, incandescent with rage. He gained a semblance of control over his emotions, although his fists clenched and unclenched by his sides. "It is that these halflings have eaten all the stores of Imladris, and now Legolas Thranduilion has taken the last of the cream from the cold-rooms for his own appalling purposes. My Lord, we have nothing to eat tonight apart from a leg of gammon and a few carrots."

"Ooh, carrots." A small hand reached out from under the table, and Pippin snatched one of the scarce vegetables, chewing on it voraciously, completely undaunted by Elrond's ferociously glare.

The elf-lord shook himself, mastering his rising irritation, and assuming the benevolent look he had learnt from his foster-father, although he knew that Gil-galad had frequently stood on a cliff-top in Balar and screamed throughout the night after wearing it.

"Do we have apples?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Well then, you have the makings of a sweet dish at least."

"There is no honey left." Lindir did not have the nerve to tell Elrond that his foster-son had begged for it with a particularly lecherous expression on his noble face.

The elf-lord sighed.

"Well, summon my sons and tell them that they must hunt this afternoon," he paused. "Lindir, do we have any … condiments?"

The fair-haired elf fumbled through the shelves until he found what he was searching for. He held the garish jar aloft.

"'Tis something that one of the paramours of Thranduil's son dropped."

Carefully unscrewing the blue lid, Elrond sniffed the contents dubiously.

"As it appears to be all that remains of your famous stores, Lindir, I shall make use of it. It does not smell like a poison of the Enemy."

He strode off, leaving a besieged Lindir to his worries.

~*~

"Celeb loth-nîn?" he called uncertainly in the darkened room. Immediately, Celebrían moved from the shadows and wrapped her arms round his neck, pressing herself against him.

"Do you have the cream?"

"Alas, it appears that our libertine guest has used the last of it, and the Hobbits have eaten the honey … but I have this."

He produced the jar from the folds of his robes, and his wife sniffed at it as cautiously as he had.

"It smells of nuts, and it is pleasant enough. Let us see what use we can put it to…" She smiled at him lustfully and drew him towards the bed.

~*~

Elrond awoke from his light doze in the arms of his beloved wife to a searing pain. Briefly he wondered if he was still dreaming, suffering the wounds which had been inflicted on him on the Dagor Dagorlad. Celebrían lifted her head from its comfortable pillow on his chest and yelled in a most unladylike manner at the sight which she beheld. Spirals of raw red were traced across his torso, leading inexorably downwards.

'Elrond, you must go to the Houses of Healing."

"Fret not, my love, it will pass," he muttered, determined not to scream.

"What did you promise when we were married?"

"That I shall always love you?" Elrond's tone was hopeful.

"You swore never to become like my father, otherwise I shall leave you and elope with an obnoxious march-warden," Celebrían corrected severely. "Now I shall take you to the Houses of Healing."

Such was the glint in her eyes, so reminiscent of her daunting mother, that Elrond wrapped the thin sheet around himself and followed her meekly.

~*~

From the shadows, two sets of eyes watched beadily.

"He's gorgeous!" one voice whispered.

"Eeew! Don't be ridiculous!' Zelda replied. "He's icky compared to Leggy-kins."

But her friend's eyes continued to trace the retreat of the tall figure.

~*~

"What is it?" Despite her earlier acerbity, Celebrían was nearly frantic with fear.

The healer looked up from his examination of the raw stripes on Elrond's skin.

"Did he eat anything unusual?"

She shook her head mutely.

"Was he testing a new salve on his skin?' he questioned gently, completely ignoring the rather irritable patient on the bed. "It would not be unusual…"

"I was not," Elrond broke in with a scowl on his face, drawing himself up onto his elbows. "I am perfectly competent to diagnose myself.

"Well then, what is I, my Lord?"

At the Peredhel's flummoxed expression, the healer turned back to the cowled lady by the side of the Lord of Imladris. He could not understand why she was here, but had ceased to be surprised by anything many centuries ago.

"Has he done anything unusual? Has he touched anything strange?"

In the deep shadows cast by the hood, Celebrían blushed scarlet, and, in halting words, she explained.

"Well … I … We … There was to be cream or honey but …" she continued her embarrassed explanation, the fingernails digging into Elrond's hand leaving no doubt as to the revenge she would exact on him.

"Well then, it seems that this is a reaction to that." The healer inclined his head. "I can make a salve of athelas to place on the marks, but he must bear this."

Eventually, the Lord and Lady of Imladris were left alone.

"I shall never let you persuade me to go in search of cream again," Elrond laughed, but his words grew more sombre. "Do I have strange eyebrows?"

As he fell into sleep, Celebrían giggled at her first memory of those eyebrows, and kissed the much-maligned arch.

*~*~*~*~*~


	4. Interlude in Valinor

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Four**

Once again, thanks to everyone who reviewed.

Incurelf: Sorry there's no Legolas in this, but I swear that he'll be in the next chapter.

**A/N: ** Curumo is Saruman. He was chosen by Aulë to go to Middle-earth, according to the Unfinished Tales. Sauron was a Maia of Aulë before he became evil and followed Morgoth. It occurred to me that poor Aulë seemed to have very bad luck and this grew out of that. The story will return to Middle-earth in the next chapter.

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

A howl of pure, unadulterated rage swept through the dwelling places of the Valar, shattering their accustomed peace and echoing in Aman beyond. Vairë, lifting her head from her loom, dropped a single stitch, and something _extremely_ nasty happened in Far Harad. The fear in the Halls of Awaiting cowered even more, and Fëanor, recognising the voice, began to suck his thumb. Only one being appeared undisturbed, all his attention bent on his work. This was, of course, destined not to last.

"Aulë!" the voice growled again, this time coming from the workshop doorway. The Vala barely acknowledge it.

"Why do you bother me, Manwë? I am rather busy."

The Lord of the Breath of Arda sighed.

"Surely 'tis not so important."

At this, the other finally raised his eyes.

"Not important? Not important? If I do not finish this, Yavanna will never speak to me again," he snapped.

"You have argued." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes. Now will you let me return to my task?"

"No." Manwë's unearthly face shone eerily. "Yet another of your servants has gone astray."

"What?" the Smith asked.

"Do not strain my patience, friend." The Vala hefted a chunk of iron ore casually. "Curumo has turned to the darkness."

"That is indeed a stroke of ill fortune."

"Ill fortune?" I would rather say it was an act of carelessness on the part of one who should have known better. Why do you always choose such hapless minions?"

Aulë grew agitated at this, waving his fine tool backwards and forwards in one great hand.

"I do not always choose thus. It has merely been two, yet you always hold it as a fault on my part."

"And what a pair!" Manwe snorted. "Sauron and Curumo. What is their fascination with frippery jewellery? Perhaps you might explain?"

"Again, I say I know naught…"

The greatest of the Valar murmured something under his breath which might have been 'the Dwarves'.

"What did you say, my brother before Time began?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering at such an unlucky coincidence," the Vala's voice was as smooth as silk and as sickly-sweet as too much honey. "Now the fate of Middle-earth rests with Olórin."

"Ah yes," Aule said haughtily. "I see where this leads. Varda always preferred Olórin and you follow her."

"I do not."

"Yes, you do."

"I do not."

"Yes, you do."

"What does it matter anyway?" the beautiful voice was petulant, heavy with dignity. "Now because the second of your Maiar friends could not restrain himself in his greed for sparkly things, like some overgrown magpie, the fate of Arda Sahta now rests with _my _servant."

"There are a few others … the son of Eärendil, for instance."

They paused for a few moments, considering the current unfortunate fate of that beleaguered individual.

"'Tis best that Olórin is strengthened then," Aulë responded.

"Indeed." Manwë left him to his metalwork. That evening, Yavanna would receive a stunning necklace, wrought in the likeness of entwined oak leaves. It was fortunate that she did not look closely enough to see the imprecations against the Lord of the Valar engraved on the underside of one of them.

~*~

Eärendil slapped his gloves against his thigh. He pondered the fact that it was all very well to be a light in the Outer Lands, and that it was a great honour, and all that, but it was still damn cold out between the stars. But here … he grinned at the prospect of his wife as he paused in the doorway to the chamber.

"But did you here what Amarië said of Finrod Felagund … well, I shall never look at the Re-embodied in the same way again…"

Two shrieks of female laughter greeted this, and Eärendil girded himself to face Elwing's friend.

"Good day to you." He stooped to kiss his wife's cheek, nodding to the other occupant of the room. "Elwing, I fear I must tell you of trouble which has befallen our son."

"Really? Which one?" the other elf broke in. Even the daughter of Dior shot her a scathing look for this particularly inane comment.

"I told you, Luinen," she said gently. "Elros chose to be counted among the Edain and has passed beyond the Circles of Arda."

"Oh yes," the fair elf laughed. "Now you mention it, I remember. So it is not him?"

"No." Earendil's legendary patience – just try sailing a ship in the heavens for long enough, and you, too, will develop this – was wearing thin indeed. "May I speak to my wife alone?"

Luinen pouted, flipping her golden hair over one shoulder in a coquettish gesture, but complied.

"I shall visit again soon, my friend."

Once the last flounces of her trailing dress had disappeared around the doorframe, the Mariner collapsed gracelessly into the vacated chair.

"Why do you talk to her?" he asked wearily. "She is so … so vapid. I cannot imagine how you can bear her presence."

Elwing's face hardened.

"No, you cannot." She rose and walked to the window. "Do you know how boring it is to talk to seagulls for hours upon end. And the sparrows … 'twitter … twitter … did you see that branch … twitter … twitter…"

"That sounds remarkably like Luinen."

"At least she tells me interesting gossip."

"What was that I heard about the eldest son of Finarfin?" He moved cautiously to wrap his arms around her waist, knowing full well that the action might cost him parts of his anatomy he had prized for millennia. However, Elwing was in an ebullient mood under her flash of fiery temper, and turned into his embrace, whispering in his ear. At the words, his grey eyes widened.

"Really … I had not thought that possible."

"Does my lord need a demonstration?"

He assented eagerly.

It was only much later that he remembered the news he bore.

"Elwing?"

"Umm?" she murmured lazily.

"I have to tell you something…"

"Oh yes … What is it, meleth-nin?" She shifted and suddenly winced in pain.

"What ails you?"

She reached beneath her back, searching for the source of her discomfort, and finally produced an empty inkpot.

"Tis the penalty for so misusing my desk…"

"And the floor…" Earendil propped himself up on one elbow on the tiled surface and kissed her. "But I was speaking of Elrond. From on high, I saw terrible creatures crawling all over Imladris."

"Orcs?" Her face contorted with worry.

"Nay. They were strange indeed. Like elves or Men, but not…"

He recounted the whole hideous tale, describing every last detail. When he had finished, he waited for his wife's reply. Unexpectedly, she began to giggle, then to rock with hysterical laughter.

"Oh aye, I know these creatures," she choked. "My parents told me how one of them once came after Beren."

"What happened?"

"My grandmother hit her – for they are indeed female – over the head with a chair and chased her to the borders at sword-point." She could now barely speak, and tears of mirth were running down her face.

"So no harm will befall our son?"

"Would you believe that any child of Galadriel's would be able to be daunted by anything? Nay, my love, with her aid, he will survive well enough." He thought for a moment, and then he laughed aloud at the image, joining in her merriment.

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~**


	5. Arrows

                                                                                    **Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Five**

Nemis:  Yep, the stuff in chapter three was peanut butter.

Can I say how much I love reviews?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Legolas surveyed the heap of cloaks on the floor of the study in amusement.

"Good day, my lord," he called cheerily.

Elrond raised his head and regarded him blearily.

"What can you possibly want at this hour of the day?"

"Anor has risen and the sky is bright."

"And I repeat," the elf-lord snarled, "what can you possibly want?"

Legolas looked down at him with growing mirth.  It was a rare thing indeed to see the ancient and wise elf caught off his guard and he was not about to miss the opportunity to make the best of it.

"I was wondering why the great Master of Imladris sleeps on the floor?" he chuckled.

Elrond sat up, scrubbing one hand across his tousled hair, his eyes boring into the prince's smirking countenance.

"Where else was I supposed to sleep, pray?" he snapped.  "Glorfindel was occupying my room, singing truly appalling ballads of Gondolin in a fit of drunken high spirits.  I tried his room, but Erestor had passed out in the chair.  When we … I mean I … proceeded to Erestor's room, you were there, as I recall, with yet another of those terrible girls.  All the guest rooms are full of either Hobbits or gouty men of Gondor.  So I have slept here.  Now, please ask more sensible questions, or leave me in peace."

As his voice grew louder, until it reached a volume which had daunted even Kinslayers, a single deep blue eye peered out of the folds of cloth.  Settling on the unwelcome visitor, it promptly disappeared.

"I wished to know if your sons and I might use the archery range," Legolas inquired.  "We wish to hone our skills through friendly competition."

Although Elrond knew that any competition between the three was liable to degenerate into a fight which would make the Kinslaying at Aqualondë look like a mild discussion of political principles, he was beyond caring.

"Yes, yes, do what you will."

Legolas began to depart, but then he remembered something and turned back.

"Tell me, Master Elrond.  Is that the standard of the High King I see?" he asked merrily.

"What of it?"  The Noldo pulled the banner tighter round his shoulders.  "I had forgotten that Gil-galad had left it here by accident until I found it in the stores, and, as certain people were using all the clean linen in Imladris for their own nefarious pursuits, I found that it had an additional use as a blanket.  Now GET OUT before I find my sword."

Once Legolas' harmonious yet grating whistling had retreated down the corridor, Celebrían slowly emerged from the covers.

"Ai, dear Eru," she groaned.  "Why do you suffer that irritating child to remain here?"

"In truth, I do not know, except that Thranduil sent a missive pleading with me to relieve him of his youngest son, or else his sanity would be forfeit," he replied in a weary tone.

"'Tis not a sufficient reason, I find, when one wakes up with a crick in one's neck and cold feet," she groused.

"Indeed, I too am getting to old for this," her husband sighed.

"Are you indeed?" Celebrían decided to investigate the truth of his claim in the most pleasant way.

"Stop, stop!" He stilled her wandering hands.  "I concede defeat, but what if some wandering busybody chances upon us?"

His words, it seemed, were prophetic, for at that moment a grizzled head poked round the door.

"Elrond, why in the name of Mandos when I went to take counsel with you did I find Glorfindel snoring _under_ your bed?" the Istar demanded.

"I know not."  The Elf grimaced, reconciling himself to a day of disturbances.  "I left him there last night when he would not cease his inane chatter except to sing.  As you can see, I have not yet returned this morning."

Gandalf harrumphed, and left, grumbling under his breath about the appropriateness of naming Imladris the Last _Homely _House.

Celebrían curled into Elrond, trying to avoid the sore patches lingering from their ill-fated experiment with alien substances.

"Meleth-nîn?" she asked innocently.  "Why do you suppose Erestor was in Glorfindel's chambers?"

"I try not to ask questions when I fear the answers."  Unwillingly, he dragged himself from the impromptu bed.  "Come, my love, we must evict the Slayer of Balrogs."

~*~

A hideous scream rent the air.  Leaving his old friend clutching his pained head in his hands, Elrond pounded through the corridors of Imladris, terrified that he might discover that the Ringwraiths had penetrated his sanctuary.  Instead, he beheld the Grey Pilgrim standing in the middle of the gardens, clutching his hat in both hands.  An arrow impaled the point jauntily.  He spent a good deal of time soothing the feelings of wizard and ensuring that he would not blast the perpetrators into small heaps of steaming powder, a task only accomplished with a great deal of diplomacy and the promise of a bottle of miruvor.  Then the elf shooed his guest back into the house.

He turned to the shrubbery with his hands on his hips and an unreadable expression on his face.

"Come out, Legolas, Elladan, Elrohir.  I know you are there."

The branches trembled, but only two figures emerged.  Elrond's jaw dropped as he looked upon his only daughter, and, a little behind her, looking abashed, the heir of Isildur, covered in leaves.  Both of them held bows in sheepish hands.

"What is the meaning of this?" the elf stormed.  "I have had to give Mithrandir a bottle of a vintage older than either of you for this piece of foolery."

"Well, Ada," Arwen attempted to explain, "Legolas and the twins were using the archery ranges, but Estel wanted to practice…"

"So you decided that any passing Istari were appropriate targets.  If that was the case, you should have tried to shoot Curunír, or at least Radagast."

"Oh not just Istari," the Man responded guilelessly, before realising what he had just said.

"So which members of my household shall I be treating?" Elrond pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Umm … just Erestor … and one of those girls," Aragorn said, and the elf cheered up immediately at the prospect of one less foolish female drooling over the irresponsible youth from Mirkwood.

~*~

Unluckily for Elrond, the girl had only stumbled over a tree-root when running from the laughing maniacs hiding in the trees.

Finishing binding the cut on her knee, he released her into the lecherous care of Legolas, whom she latched onto with a fervour which would alarm Shelob herself.  As the two left, already wrapped round each other, the Sindar elf cast a wicked look back over his shoulder, and Elrond grimaced.

"Nice shiny pretty things," Erestor babbled, clutching his forearm.  "Nice shiny yellow things.  So lovely…"

"Yes, Erestor, I am certain that yellow things are very nice," the bemused healer reassured him.

"No y'do not understan, m'lord," the dazed elf slurred.  "The yellow things are scary … so scary…"

Elrond decided that his only recourse was to dose his healer very heavily indeed – preferably so heavily that he would not wake for weeks.  Lifting Erestor's head, he poured the draft down his throat, and watched in satisfaction as the other's head lolled onto the pillows.

As he tidied away the medicines, a sudden, unwelcome thought occurred to the Master of Imladris.

"Estel is spending time in the bushes with my daughter … He needs to be taught a lesson."

~*~*~*~*~*~


	6. Guided Tour

                                                                                                **Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Six**

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

Aragorn stood before the desk; his noble shoulders slumped in defeat.  He had attempted to look like the king he might be, but only succeeded in looking like the child he had been.

"Ada…" Elrond's heart softened at the name, which he now so rarely heard from the man's lips, but he would not allow himself to be swayed.

"Pen nîn tithen, you will do this.  I have made my mind up, and this is to be your task."

The Dúnadan steeled himself for the unpleasant ordeal.  A gaggle of girls trooped into the room, giggling and twittering.

"What is your name?"  Elrond pointed to one, who stood near the front of the crowd, dressed in a gown which appeared to have been hastily fashioned from a undergarments with a length of curtain tacked to the bottom by rather inexperienced needlework.

"I am Galadriana."  She tossed her head.  "I am the Princess of Lórien."

"You are not," the elf replied in a measured voice.

"I am," she squeaked.

"Do you not think I would know my own wife's sister?" he asked rhetorically.  "As it is, she has no sister.  Thus, I know you are not the Princess of Lórien.  Furthermore, there has not been even a King or Queen in the Golden Wood in many a year."

"You're married?" the girl asked.  "Ewww."

The others joined in her chorus of disgust, all except one, who merely appraised him, wondering how she might pry him from his wife.  If they had had the wits to look, they would have seen a face of a beauty they could never hope to achieve scowling at them from behind a drapery.  Celebrían did not much appreciate their analysis of her husband.

"That matters not."  Elrond, however, looked more amused than offended.  "I present to you Aragorn son of Arathorn.  He will show you the wonders of Imladris, and teach you a little of elven culture."

Returning to his work on a trade treaty, which suddenly seemed to be of remarkable interest, he bade them to depart.

"What's Imladris?" Turquoise whispered to the girl next to her as they filed through the door.

"I dunno."

Aragorn has heard.

"This, my ladies, is Imladris, the valley of the cleft, in the Common Speech named Rivendell.'

They simpered at being called ladies and barely heard his explanation.

The scion of kings, wishing that he was back in the wilds or even on the brink of Mordor itself, lead them to the kitchens, hoping that this at least would be a simple place to begin.  He had not expected to find Lindir chasing Merry and Pippin around the room with a rolling pin, swearing so foully that even an orc would have blushed.  Nor had he reckoned on finding the Legolas Thranduilion in one of the storerooms, nestled among the potato sacks with a girl who had managed to sneak away.  The princeling waved at his admirers over his companion's shoulder.  

Once Aragorn had managed to separate the skirmishers, he decided that it would be safest to leave the kitchens.  As they did so, two more Hobbits sneaked past and began to stuff food inside their clothes.

They proceeded to the gallery where the Sword that was Broken was kept.

"The Last Alliance of Men and Elves was formed to combat the might of Sauron.  They fought not simply for themselves, but for the freedom of all and the hope of the future.  On the slopes of Mount Doom … Yes, what is it?" he broke off.

"Was Legolas there?"

"No, he was not, but Oropher, his grandsire, died valiantly in battle."

"I bet he'd have done well though," Em said, waving her bejewelled hands excitedly.  "I bet he'd have killed Sauron and been able to use the Ring for good."

"Do not speak of it so loudly," Aragorn barked, already wearied beyond measure by this feat of endurance, and wishing, not for the last time, for his foster-father's quelling glare.  "The Ring is evil, and none of us can wield it, not even the wisest … among whom I would certainly not number the son of Thranduil."  He muttered the last words under his breath.

Ensuring that his audience was, if not silent, then at least no more raucous than usual, he continued, "On the slopes of that terrible mountain, Elendil was slain, and Gil-galad was slain, and all seemed to be lost…"

"What about the Hobbits?" Peony inquired, momentarily abandoning her plans to seduce Elrond.

"There were no Hobbits there," Aragorn responded.

"But…"

"There.  Were.  No. Hobbits. There.  This was the Last Alliance of _Men and __Elves.  As I was saying, it seemed that there was no chance of victory…" he trailed off.  One of the girls had picked up the hilt of Narsil, and was waving it in violent circles, narrowly missing her friends' scalps.  Retrieving the blade, Aragorn concluded that it would be best to beat a strategic retreat from this place._

~*~

The archery range had been a mistake.  Amandil (who still thought that her adopted name was too pretty to belong to any man, despite Glorfindel's poorly stifled guffaws), Sandy and Galadriana had fainted dead away at the sight of Legolas' bow lying discarded on the ground.  Eventually, they had awakened, only to mutter incoherently through his exposition on the Valar and the creation of Arda.  

The only response to the sight of the memorial to Gilraen had been particularly unfortunate: one girl had grabbed his tunic in a vice and leaned in to kiss him.  Although he had pulled back immediately, he was sure that he had seen a pair of angry blue eyes belonging to a particular elf maiden gleaming in the shrubbery.

"Now we are in the gardens of Imladris.  Does anyone know why these are so important?" he sighed heavily, vowing that he would never again underestimate Erestor's talent in teaching squirming children.

"Because we can sing to Legolas here?" Turquoise suggested, lugging the drooling burden on her friend Sandy along.  "Like this?

"Oh Leggy,

You are so yummy.

You are so cute

I'd like to see you in your birthday suit."

Far away in the library, Elrond clamped his hands over his ears at the wailing noise.

"No.  The elves cherish these gardens for the sake of Yavanna Kementári, Queen of the Earth, who loves all the Olvar, the growing things.  She is one of the Aratar, the greatest of the … urkkkkk…"

A strong hand had reached down from an overhanging tree, grabbing his collar and drawing him up into the branches.  Brushing twigs out of his eyes, he sighed in relief.  

"My Evenstar … thank the Valar."  He grinned at her.  "Between those who wanted Legolas, and those who had an unseemly interest in the Hobbits, and the one who kept making the most suspicious inquiries about your father…"

"And the one who tried to embrace you," Arwen added dryly.

"… And that one, I feared for my sanity."  He kissed her tenderly.

"Shall we stay here?" she giggled, between attempts to undo the buttons of his tunic.

"Although I fear that this ordeal is your father's way of punishing me for my pursuit of you, I shall bow to your wishes, my lady."

The fangirls wandered aimlessly around, confused by the disappearance of Aragorn, and thoroughly lost.  Legolas sauntered along the path, and they turned to him, like hounds at bay.

"Good day."  He bowed deeply.  "Might I escort you back to the house?"

As one they followed him, their eyes glazed, leaving an almost imperceptible trail of drool.  The gardens were once again silent, apart from the rustling of the tree in which the two lovers sat, and the occasional curse and scream as Gandalf discovered that Saruman had filled the pockets of his spare cloak with dead frogs and copies of the best-selling pamphlet 'How to Breed your Own Army of Evil – by M. Morgoth."

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~**


	7. Oil

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Seven**

Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Gandalf awakened to sounds of scrabbling in the tree outside his window. He closed his eyes resolutely, but the sounds only grew more insistent, more irritating. Swearing in Quenya and the tongue of the dwarves, he grabbed his staff and stumbled to the balcony.

Outside, a girl was hanging precariously in the tree.

"What are you doing?" he demanded irritably.

Peony nearly lost her grip at the sight of the Istar only clothed in a sheet. Clinging on, with her eyes shut against the appalling sight, she said, "Isn't this Lord Elrond's bedroom?"

"Do I look like the Master of Rivendell?"

She was forced to concede that, unfortunately, he did not, a fact that was made abundantly clear by his state of undress.

"How can I get there?"

"You will be ill welcomed by Lord Elrond, so I suggest that you do not get there."

"But if I do, what is the way?"

"Through the Halls of Mandos themselves." Gandalf stomped back inside. The sparks which shot out of his wand, which he was later to assure all that inquired were quite unintentional, were the last straw. Peony lost her uncertain hold on the trunk of the tree, and fell to the ground, amid a flurry of frantically waving limbs. Luckily, a girl who was sneaking out to meet Legolas for a liaison in the hot springs broke her descent. Unluckily, as her arms flailed, she tossed something high into the air. It landed on Gandalf's bed.

The wizard picked the offensive object up between his gnarled fingers and regarded it with cynical eyes. It appeared to be a black lace garter.

"This is it," he stormed, flinging his battered robe on. "This is enough."

His enraged words could be heard through all Imladris.

"In the West of my youth I was Olórin, acknowledged as the wisest of the Maiar." He thundered down the corridor. "But here I am nothing but an old fool quartered in a house under siege. How am I supposed to fight the forces of Darkness when the forces of adolescent lust are so pernicious? A garter for Elrond indeed! As if his wife does not have enough already! Would you like to make any suggestions, O Lord of the Breath of Arda?"

But it seems that Manwë listens to all, even if his replies are not what they would wish for. Gandalf was too immersed in his grousing to notice the fangirl creeping along the corridor as she left her nightly activities in Legolas' rooms. He tripped over her and fell down the stairs, doing considerable damage to his already wounded hat. The clamour roused Elrond, looking not best pleased at being disturbed.

However, he soon ascertained that his friend had broken his leg in the fall.

"How many more will be injured in this infestation? Can you not heal yourself?"

"My body is human, even if my spirit is not," the wizard retorted. "This lies in your hands, Master Elrond."

So they made their way to the Houses of Healing. Alas, it seemed that Gandalf was neither the first nor the last patient of the morning. Four Hobbits sat, side by side, their faces green under their curly hair, having eaten some of Lindir's 'special' mushrooms, and a fangirl was weeping at the carpet-burn on her knees.

"But we do not have carpets in Imladris." The elf-lord was thoroughly confused.

"Well, Mr. Elrond, sir, there was this nice carpet in a cupboard which we thought would make the floor more comfortable…"

Elrond closed his eyes in an attempt to dispel the image.

"Did it have anything on it?"

"Apart from Leggy?" The girl giggled, much to the disapproval of her audience. "Well, it seemed to have lots of pretty trees…"

The elf groaned. He would never be able to use his tapestry of Doriath, his only heirloom from the realm of Melian and Thingol, again. It was far too unpleasant to contemplate.

As the Noldorin Elf was passing goblets of steaming liquid to the Hobbits, and lecturing them on the follies of eating other people's stores of mushrooms, an impossibly cheerful head poked round the door.

"Good morning, Sarai, gentlemen, Lord Elrond, Mithrandir," Legolas chirruped.

The girl attempted to pull her skirts up to expose a few more inches of leg, hoping that he would not mind the carpet-burn, as he was the cause of it.

Elrond's greeting was scarcely more cordial than Mithrandir's, and the Hobbits did not respond at all, absorbed as they were in keeping their heads from floating away.

"I wondered," the newcomer continued breezily, "if I might borrow some oil."

"Why?"

"Oh, experimentation, my dear boy, experimentation."

Feeling as queasy as the Hobbits looked, Elrond tossed a small jar at the archer's head.

'Just go, Thranduilion. I do not wish to know more."

~*~

The birds sang in the trees; the arrows whistled on the ranges. It was towards the latter that the fury of the Master of the House was directed.

"Why are there oil-stains on my sheets?" he bellowed, standing over Legolas, whose back was propped against a tree, his bow resting by his feet. "Why does my bed smell like the thyme liniment I gave you this morning?"

"Perhaps the charming lady who shares your bed…" he trailed off as he suddenly found himself surrounded by three enraged Peredhil, his companions coming to their father's aid.

"Do not say such things, grandson of Oropher," Elrond snarled. "I have no love for these liaisons of yours, but when you take them to my chambers and make such comments of my wife, you risk your life."

"I cannot breathe, Elrond," the Sindar elf choked.

"I cannot perceive why I should care." But the elf-lord released his hold on the other's tunic.

Elladan and Elrohir grimaced down at him, holding their bows threateningly.

Elrond stalked back inside to tidy his room, and comfort Celebrían, who had returned from a walk in the woods to a rather unexpected disaster scene.

A dark head peered around the bushes, its tresses dishevelled. 

"What was that about Ammë?" Arwen asked.

"Did you not hear?"

"No. I was … ah … busy…" An explanation was furnished as the head of the heir of Isildur popped up alongside her.

"Oh, we see," the twins remarked in unison. They turned back to their erstwhile friend, only to find him wandering off back towards the Last Homely House.

Legolas was unconcerned, and certainly did not regret his sojourn in Elrond's rooms. After all, he now had information to use against the Lord of Imladris … But how to get a letter to Lord Celeborn in the Golden Wood? That was the question.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


	8. HOW many fathers?

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Eight**

Thanks for all the reviews.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

However, no letter was needed, for the next day Celeborn rode into Imladris, on what the charitable might call a social visit, although it was more of an attempt to persuade his granddaughter of the merits of Lothlórien. His horse, nearly as proud and stubborn as its rider, narrowly missed trampling a girl who had decided that the best way to impress Thranduil's son was to learn how to climb trees. She was not nearly as good a climber as she was a kisser, especially when encumbered by platform heels and hot pants. If she had known that the prince far preferred the former talent, she might have saved herself a good deal of time, effort and pain. As it was, she fell with a resounding thud before the lord's mount. Elrond, hastily apprised of the visitors, smothered a grin behind his hand.

"I see that you do not miss my daughter so much that you cannot find amusement in folly," Celeborn groused, although he looked as if he rather enjoyed the prospect of informing her of the ill doings of the Half-elven.

"Not at all." Elrond tried to assume the expression of a husband bereaved of his wife, a feat that was rendered all the more difficult by the fact that he had been in her arms not ten minutes before. "I was … ah … imagining how much her grace outstrips that of these creatures."

"As you should. She is, after all, my daughter. But you never did appreciate her charms, did you?"

Elrond gritted his teeth. It would be a very, very long couple of weeks. He would have been even more worried if he had noticed the malevolent grin on the face of his rival's prodigal son.

"Quite so, my lord. For her charms are such that none could truly appreciate them." The Peredhel smiled tightly. "But come, we must find you quarters."

~*~

Elrond thumped his head repeatedly against the table, ignoring the dull ache in his temples. To find a room for the visiting lord had been an achievement worthy of the heros of old, and he felt decidedly as if he was nothing more than a mortal Man trying to find his way through Melian's labyrinth - although, if all the tales of Beren were true, that appeared to be rather easier than this. Naturally, he did not want his father-in-law too close to his rooms, so he had tried to persuade the son of Gondor to share a room with one of his father's subjects. Unfortunately, Boromir refused to move any closer to the rooms of Legolas, fearing for his life if he was brought any nearer to the youngster's followers. Elrond felt a degree of sympathy for him, as he had had to fish the Man from the Bruinen twice in the last week and remove the lead weights from his pockets and the bonds from his wrists.

Then, no one wished to take Thranduilion's chambers unless they were thoroughly aired and the bed replaced. At this point, adolescent girls begging him to change 'Leggy's' rooms to a suite on the ground floor had besieged him, so that they could sneak in to visit the princeling. Some had been blunt enough to tell him this. In truth, he did not know whether he despised them more or less than those who had reeled out coy yet inventive excuses, at least one of which had involved Quenya lessons. Elrond, tired and with frayed nerves, had told the persistent female that Legolas did not know Quenya. Unfortunately, this had not resulted, as he had hoped, in her fleeing the valley to pester the Men of Bree, but merely in a pair of over-plucked eyebrows being raised like startled tapeworms.

He had only been saved by the willingness of Samwise Gamgee to share a room with the Ringbearer. Elrond suspected that this had more than a little to do with rumours of late-night poker games and the rapidly diminishing stock of fine liqueurs. However as he felt as if someone had crammed a Balrog inside his skull, fiery lash and all, he agreed meekly.

Bowing his head over the scarred wood, his eyes unfocused, he did not hear the whisper of silken skirts until a mouth brushed his ear. He turned in sudden fear at who this new assailant might be, and grinned weakly but thankfully when he beheld his wife.

"I have a terrible headache, celeb loth-nîn," he murmured. "Look, Anar is already dropping below the horizon, and I have spent most of this day rearranging our uncooperative guests."

"Poor child," she giggled. "Perhaps I can make all your troubles disappear."

"And how might you do that?"

"Like this." She bent her head to suckle his ear and he chuckled hoarsely.

"Come, my love. 'Tis not safe here with your father around. Let us make haste to our chambers."

He began to tug at her hand, leading her from the room, when an angry bellow reached them.

"Does no one here speak at a normal volume?" he grumbled, then blanched as he recognised the voice.

"Adar!" Celebrían said as Elrond began to push her towards a cupboard. But they were too late, or Celeborn's pace was too swift, and before they could make much progress the Sindar lord was standing before them, his blue eyes bulging from their sockets.

"What is the meaning of this?" he stuttered once he had regained the ability to speak. "Curse you to the Void, Peredhil. You have been keeping my daughter captive against her wishes. I should have suspected as much."

With a howl of rage, he drew the sword which still hung by his side. Elrond reached for the nearest object to defend himself with. Alas, it turned out to be a volume of poetry from Gondolin, which was neatly skewered by his guest's blade. Not risking a backwards glance, he fled along the corridor with Celeborn at his heels and Celebrían not far behind, holding her skirts bunched up as she ran.

In and out of rooms they skidded, up and down flights of stairs and around priceless monuments, not a few of which were smashed in the process.

In the end, Elrond, although both younger and more agile than his father-in-law, was outwitted by the force of rage. He found himself pinned to the fountain in the main courtyard, deadly steel pressed to his throat.

"Adar," Celebrían remonstrated. "I am not here against my will."

"Nonsense, iell-nîn. You are clearly under some foul enchantment of his. Mayhap he is in league with Sauron."

He pressed his sword-point threateningly into the flesh of the half-elf's throat.

"So tell me, Master Thief. How did you steal my daughter's soul? I had a Silvan boy in mind for her, a good solid fellow with no Noldor airs, but then _you_ came along. And now this…" he trailed off threateningly, and Elrond cast a hopeless glance at his wife, but she only shrugged.

At that moment, when the Lord of Imladris was resigning himself to a premature meeting with Mandos, there was a crack of thunder, and a voice boomed from the heavens, "Let my son go, you idiot of the Moriquendi."

"And who might you be?"

"Eärendil."

Looking up, the startled crowd saw that Gil-Estel was shining with a fearsome brightness in the pale evening sky, as if it might fall on their heads in a cascade of fire.

"Oh well, my Lord, you are not here, so I feel safe in asking, what in the name of Mandos has your son done to my daughter?"

"Nay, he is not here, but I am." A figure stood forth from the crowd, pulling his deep hood from his head.

"Oh Eru," Elrond groaned. "'Tis Maglor."

"Kinslayer," Celeborn hissed. "Keep your bloodstained hands out of it."

Maglor raised his horribly scarred hands with a sarcastic grimace.

"As you can see, my hands are indeed stained, but I can still use my head."

And with that, he charged the Sindar Elf, his head down like an enraged bull. Unfortunately, his move only succeeded in impaling Elrond with the tip of Celeborn's sword, which stick firm in the statue. Whimpering with pain, the Master of Rivendell cursed the sword-craft of old, which had forged such sharp blades.

"Now see what you have done," Eärendil shouted from on high. But Maglor was too busy trying to attack his opponent with his elbows and teeth to listen. "He is no son of yours. He did not even like you."

"At least I did not leave him," Maglor riposted round mouthful of silver hair, before locking his jaws round Celeborn's shoulder.

"Oh did you not?"

No one seemed to be paying much attention to the bleeding Peredhel by this point except his wife, but suddenly an unnatural silence fell, like the calm before some massive upheaval of the earth.

A glow grew in the courtyard, unearthly and terrible. Teltaurtharia buried her head in Legolas' shoulder, and he used this as an excuse to creep away as quickly as possible.

In the centre of the light a shadowy form could be discerned, and it spoke in a voice filled with menace, "I am Elwë, and what do you think you are doing to my son Telporno?"

"Tel-whatty?" Lis sniggered.

"Your son?" Erestor gaped.

"Well obviously I did not mean that literally," the shade snapped.

"And I do not appreciate jokes about the name." Celeborn now had his hands firmly locked round Maglor's neck, that is, until the son of Fëanor brought his knee up in an extremely interesting manoeuvre. The dark-haired elf used his foe's temporary incapacity to sit on his chest.

"Let Telporno go."

"You are dead," Glorfindel complained.

"So were you. Unluckily for you, you never learnt some of the more interesting aspects of the Halls. Mandos can be extremely accommodating about such ventures when one knows where Yavanna keeps her stash of pear brandy. 'Tis one of the advantages of having married a Maia."

"And look where there got you," a new voice interrupted Elu Thingol. "And now your 'son' is trying to kill mine."

It soon became apparent from his great stature and grim face, even in death, that this new spectre was none other than Ereinion Gil-galad.

"He is a cradle-robber and Telporno is in the right."

'Lord Celeborn is an idiot."

"What would you know of such things, boy-king?"

"Jewel obsessed duffer."

"Lord I-shall-call-myself-after-a-star-but-I-can-not-duck-even-when-it-is-really-obvious."

"So speaks the master of all bad schemes."

"Ha! At least I got a Silmaril, not some silly ring."

"At least I was not killed by Dwarves."

Soon name-calling had degenerated into the exchange of ethereal blows, and the two spirits were rolling in the dust like brawling children.

"Madman."

"Lunatic."

"Child of a murderer."

"Fingon was not a murderer."

"I was speaking of your mother."

In the midst of all this, Gimli son of Glóin, offended by the remarks being bandied about on the subject his people, began to hack at the knees of all and sundry. Erestor squealed and leapt into Glorfindel's arms. The latter looked more than a little pleased by this development, until the blade bit into his own legs, at which point he dropped his burden on the ground.

"Enough!" Celebrían decided that it was time for someone to take charge of the situation. "You and you." She pointed to the spirits, who, against all laws of metaphysics, had managed to become bloodied and bruised. "Go home and tell Mandos that you apologise for your behaviour. As for the rest of you, I shall be tempted to send you to join them unless you cease this instant."

They quailed under her vicious blue stare and began to slink away.

~*~

"This is fun," Elrond giggled. "Why do not all like my medicines so much?"

"It must be your human side, my dear."

The elf-lord found this hysterically amusing and began to roll round in the bed with tears of mirth pouring down his face. Disgusted, Celebrían left.

"Do you know where my father is?" she inquired of the Hobbit who was sneaking down the hall. 

"I believe Maglor has him in chains in the dungeons," Frodo replied, trying to hide the dish of mushrooms under his waistcoat.

"We do not have dungeons."

"Well, my Lady, there were all the Dwarves…"

"I see."

Making her way to the newly fashioned dungeons, she yelled Maglor's mother-name in a passable imitation of Nerdanel, which Galadriel had taught her for any such occasions - unlikely though they seemed. It was a trick she in turn had learnt to keep Fëanor's interest in her hair at bay. The kinslayer, whom so many had feared, cowered against the wall like a chastised child.

"I do not believe that we need dungeons."

"It seemed…"

"I do not care what it seemed. Now let my father free."

Rather reluctantly, Maglor unshackled the Lord of the Galadhrim.

"Thank you, my daughter. Now we must make haste to Lothlórien. I am sure that Círdan would oblige you and annul the marriage."

She stopped dead.

"I do not wish it annulled, Adar. Why do you think that all assume I am in Valinor?"

"Well, 'tis obviously some trick of Elrond's…"

"Nay, it was my idea, for I could not stand to be pestered any more. Now, I shall lead you to your room where you will stay."

And so it was.

~*~

When Elrond awoke the next morning, it was with a pounding head, a painful shoulder, and a burning fury.

"What ever it takes, I shall stop Legolas' supply of these girls."

"Why?" Celebrían lifted her head from the edge of the bed where it had been resting. "I concede that they are irritating, but they are hardly to blame for the latest fiasco."

"Believe me, meleth-nîn." His jaw set hard. "They are to blame for all the ills of Arda."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**A/N:** About Maglor's hands: they might well be scarred after being burnt by the Silmaril.

celeb loth-nîn - my silver flower.

Adar - father.

iell-nîn - my daughter.

meleth-nîn - my love.


	9. Wine

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Nine**

*looks at the reviews* Thank you, folks.

This was far more fun reading about Castlereagh *grins*

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Not all the music of the Ainur is grand and celestially beautiful. Some is more akin to a one-man band, and some – well, some is rather like the sound a toddler produces with his elder sister's violin. It was just such an ineffable cacophony which afflicted Imladris.

The Lord of the Galadhrim was locked in his room, as when he was released he tended to try to strangle his son-in-law, or weep all over his daughter's dresses. A dispatch rider had been sent to Lothlórien, begging the Lady's assistance in controlling her recalcitrant husband.

Maglor, having refused to depart, claiming that he needed a rest from wandering the sea shore singing laments, was currently entranced. Arwen sat before him, dangling the Evenstar on its chain, and watching his eyes dart to and fro. The Dúnadan was at present hiding behind the drapes, giggling in a most unseemly manner. It appeared that even scorch marks could not entirely quash a longing for jewels in a son of Fëanor.

The Master of the House … well, his activities, despite a sword through his shoulder, are best left to the imagination. Suffice it to say that Celebrían was humming happily when she left the room.

And Legolas Thranduilion was shackled in the dungeons.

What? Eru help us…

Unfortunately, it was Erestor who found him, having become lost as he tried to extricate the Hobbits from the cold-room. It was Glorfindel who found _him_ in a crumpled heap on the floor.

"Come on, mellon-iaur. How many times will I have to do this?"

But Erestor only groaned.

"Very nice thanks, I see," the golden-haired elf said merrily. 

When he returned, having left Elrond's chief advisor sprawled across his bed, he found the young prince still in his uncomfortable situation.

"Release me."

"Now why should I do that?" Glorfindel was mightily amused. "After all, I know not for what crime you have been clapped in chains."

"Do you think this is for any crime? In the name of Elbereth, I am naked," Legolas whined. "She ran away with the keys, saying that she would look for other instruments of interest. Forsooth, I know not where the silly chit has gone."

"Then I do not think it fair to deprive her of her pleasure … or yours." Glorfindel sauntered off, trying to dispel the image of what might happen next. 

Alas, as he turned into the main corridor, he collided with Releiiankilia carrying a heavy crate. As its contents spilled across the floor, the hero of Gondolin had the image imprinted on his brain. He shuddered and shielded his eyes.

_*Mandos, why did you have to release me? I had much rather listen to Fëanor complain about the accommodation for the rest of Arda than endure this*_

He picked up an object which had an uncanny resemblance to a nutmeg grater, and deposited it in the box with a moue of distaste.

_*I need not to be sober*_

Thus, he collected several bottles of Elrond's finest wine and at least one of miruvor, before retiring to a shady nook in the gardens to drown out the most unpleasant of thoughts.

~*~

"Hey ho, merry dong-a-dildo," Glorfindel sang at the top of his voice as he wove between the trees. Goldberry, who had come to Rivendell to recuperate, as was her wont every couple of centuries, began to hit herself over the head with a spade.

"What is this?" he poked his head into a summerhouse to see Aragorn and Arwen entwined around each other, their clothes in disarray. "I have never clapped eyes on such a pair. Shall I tell your father?"

"Be quiet, Glorfindel, and go away," Aragorn muttered, throwing the shards of Narsil at him. Grinning amiably, he did as he was bidden.

As he danced around the gardens with an imaginary partner, he fell over a group of small creatures sitting on the grass and landed in a large pot of mushrooms simmering in a garlicky sauce.

"What ho, my merry feather dusters," he giggled, singeing his nose on the fragrant liquid, and falling back into the lap of a very startled Ringbearer.

The other Hobbits scowled at him. 

"Are you trying to steal the Ring from Mister Frodo, sir?" Sam demanded.

"Ring, what ring? Is it pretty? I have some very pretty rings you know."

Having realised that the inebriated Elf was no threat, the Merry and Pippin proceeded to fleece him at poker. 

Finally, with many promises of the keys to the deepest stores as payment, he departed, deciding that it was time to make his way to his rooms. This would have been a fine idea, if he could have remembered where his rooms where.

As it was, he collapsed across a bed which was much softer than he remembered any bed being.

Celebrían lifted her head from her perusal of her husband's chest with an irate expression in her eyes as she regarded the Elf slumped across her legs.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Oh, is this not my room?"

"No." She exchanged a look with Elrond. "You are not fit to be up yet. I must take him to his chambers."

Re-lacing the front of her robe, something which was easier said than done as she could not find the fine satin ribbons, she picked Glorfindel off the bed. Eventually, she found one of Elrond's bootlaces and used it to restore her modesty.

"Y're verrry pr'ty y'know," Glorfindel slurred as she pushed him down the corridor.

"Tell your pillows that." She shoved him over the lintel.

His eyes lit up as he beheld the dark-haired figure asleep on his bed.

"Your verrry pr'ty, my pillow." He prodded Erestor into wakefulness.

"What? Ow, get off me, you fool!" The advisor tried to roll out of the way.

"Nuh. Not fool. Glorfin… Golfrin … Gorfineelkd … Gofi…" Glorfindel said triumphantly. "'M Gofi and I like your hair…"

At that he fell asleep and Erestor made his escape, barricading himself into a cupboard.

"That is my foot," a voice complained from the darkness. Fumbling around, the Elf managed to light a candle stub. Holding it up, he saw Boromir crouched in a corner, clutching his foot.

"I am sorry." He tried to bow, but only succeeded in hitting his head on a shelf on which sat a very moth-eaten tunic and the twins' disastrous childhood efforts at pottery.

Picking shards of a particularly gruesome statue of Ulmo, whose face fluoresced in the dark, from his hair, he asked, "Why are you here?"

"One of Legolas' followers tried to stone me to death with cosmetics. You?"

'Glorfindel is drunk."

The Son of Gondor seemed to accept that explanation.

"And to think that I heard this was a sanctuary…"

"It once was, but now … Oh Eru, 'tis the madness these girls have brought with them."

Boromir reflected on this for a few moments before drawing a wineskin from its resting-place on the floor.

"Drink?"

"Please."

When they had drunk enough to sink one of the Mumakil of Harad, they fell asleep among the battered pots and pans, Erestor's head on the unused shoes which Eärendil had forgotten to take with him in his last voyage, Boromir's on Maglor's ink-stained draft of the Noldolantë.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	10. A Solution or Not

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Ten**

*Screams* Help, help! My muse is eating me alive. Please give him some reviews to eat instead.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Elrond was not happy. It was his first day out of bed, yet no one else seemed to be up. He leaned his uninjured shoulder on the wall, contemplating what he should do next. However, the section of wall he chose was actually a door. He landed sprawled on something which most definitely was not the floor.

"Ow, my head."

"Ow, my shoulder."

"Please, please, please do not let that be Glorfindel, O Elbereth. I promise I will be good … and nice to Lindir … and I will clean out the stables. Please…"

"What are you going on about now, Erestor?" Elrond scrambled to his feet and looked at his dazed advisor.

"He is being pursued by the golden-haired ninny," the other voice explained.

The elf-lord turned his attention to the Son of Gondor who was now sitting up in the corner, rubbing his head, amid a mass of empty wineskins.

"From the complaints coming from his rooms, Glorfindel is in no state to pursue anyone this morning. Now get up Erestor."

The Noldo pulled his hands away from his face cautiously.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

The bedraggled pair followed Elrond from the closet. However, they walked straight into Glorfindel who was sitting on the floor groaning, his head between his knees.

"Nooooooooo." Erestor bolted down the corridor and out into the gardens.

The Master of Rivendell nudged his seneschal with the toe of his boot.

"What was that all about?"

"Too much wine and some … interesting impulses."

~*~

The Peredhel stood in the middle of the dining room, and observed the chaos with grim foreboding. 

Gandalf was waving an empty beaker around, his broken leg propped up on a chair. 

Boromir sat with his head on the table, fast asleep and slightly green-tinged.

The Hobbits were experimenting to see if the upholstery was edible.

Celeborn, tied firmly to his chair, was yelling at Maglor, who was brandishing a carving knife.

Lindir stood on the table, one foot on an empty platter, yelling, "No more! No more! I refuse to serve anyone until this household stops behaving like the host of Fëanor at the kinslaying at Aqualondë."

Maglor immediately rounded on him.

"If the Teleri had just given us the wretched ships…"

"Oh, that would have been such a good idea," Celeborn snapped.

The din became louder and louder, and Elrond crept from the room unnoticed – that is, apart from by a couple of pairs of eyes which were lower to the ground than normal.

"Mister Elrond, sir." He felt an insistent tug at his trouser leg and looked down to find Sam and Frodo smiling up at him.

"Yes?"

"What are they going on about?"

"Old grievances, little ones: grievances older than your race."

"If they are so very old, they cannot be that important, so can we have some breakfast?" Frodo broke in.

"I shall see what I can find." Elrond resigned himself to the task of quartermaster and stomped off – as much as any elf can stomp – towards the stores.

He paused in bafflement at the junction of two corridors. He had prided himself on knowing the layout of Imladris down to the last chimney-nook, but that was before the dwarves' impromptu alterations. Now, he was lost. As he contemplated his options, Legolas sauntered into view, limping slightly, with a girl in tow.

Elrond glanced curiously into the box she was carrying and immediately wished he had not.

"That is Lindir's garlic crusher!" he exclaimed. "And that is the cord from the curtains in my room!"

"Would you like them back?" she held the objects in question aloft.

"O Eru, no." He regarded them with distaste and hurried off, finally getting his bearings through sheer desperation.

As he bent to pick up a sack of mushrooms, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, his control finally snapped.

"No. This is enough! No more!" He stormed back towards the main area of the house and grabbed Aragorn by his arm, not even noticing that the Man was emerging from Arwen's rooms.

"Get your brothers and meet me in the library in ten minutes."

When they were assembled, he explained his plan…

~*~

The search for whatever means the fangirls were using to infiltrate Imladris had proved remarkably unsuccessful. All he had found was Erestor huddled against the base of a tree refusing to be moved and a tunic he had lost the previous summer. Elladan and Elrohir were trying to rediscover all their childhood haunts and Aragorn had mysteriously disappeared.

Elrond decided that his quest was futile and turned to retrace his steps to the house. He almost fell over a curious object half-buried in the grass. As he steadied himself against the trunk of a tree, a mist formed round it and a girl emerged.

"Well," she said briskly to no one in particular, checking her make-up in a small mirror. "I wonder which way it is to Leggy."

Before she knew what had hit her, she was pinned to a tree.

"I know my rights," she shrieked. "I demand to see the U.S. consul."

"Did that thing bring you here?" Elrond brandished the tangle of wires in her face.

"Yep."

"Then it can take you back."

The furious grey eyes were so determined that she began to scrabble round in her handbag for the sheet of instructions. "Umm, I've got it here somewhere…"

"Hurry, the orcs are coming," he lied.

"Oh that doesn't bother me." She held up a can of pepper spray and a metal nail-file in proof. "Anyway, Legs will rescue me."

"I would not be so sure." Elrond grimaced at the thought of Legolas' activities the previous night.

Eventually, with much cursing and many broken nails, she was returned to her proper place and time. 

The Peredhel knelt down to examine the apparatus and beheld the lost palantir of Amon Sûl tethered to an odd looking box. Gathering the seeing-stone and its accoutrements into his arms, he stalked back towards the Last Homely House and barged into the room where Legolas was whispering hotly in Sarai's ear.

"Would you like to explain to me what this is?"

"Well, I would have thought that you would recognise one of the palantiri." Legolas decided that the best option was the most brazen one – as always.

"And what, pray, is it doing attached to this … this thing?"

"How would I know?"

"If you do not, you are more of a fool than I thought you. This contraption brings _your_ girls into _my _valley."

"I confess that I know that, but I do not know how it works." He had never bothered to find out. The first girl had quite literally dropped into Fëanor's lap in Valinor long ago, her laptop slung over her shoulder: a gift courtesy of Morgoth. The jewel-addled Noldo had brought it to Middle-earth in the hope that it could be used in the war, and after long ages it had somehow passed into the hands of the Line of Isildur. One particularly squint-eyed little idiot had rigged it up to the palantir of Amon Sûl and a terror was born. For much of the Third Age, it had lain dormant, but now, with the final confrontation with Sauron at hand, it had awakened, spewing forth a torrent of hormone-ridden girls.

"It's a computer." Sarai leaned over it. "A bit of a shit one, but it's got a modem."

"What in the name of Mandos in a computer? Or a modem?"

"A computer is an information-thingy and a modem is a thingy for sending information."

Light dawned on Elrond's face, despite this cryptic explanation.

"I begin to see how this works. The palantir finds the girls and this 'modem' brings them here," he breathed. "But it will work no more."

With that, he flung it to the floor and stamped on it until it was nothing but a collection of shards of metal and plastic, although oddly enough it still beeped occasionally.

"And I shall put the seeing-stone in a place where none will find it." He was thinking of Elladan's sock drawer, a place that the younger elf scarcely visited, preferring to keep his socks in a pile under his bed.

Feeling an incipient headache from Sarai's lurid red hair and silver-green-violet eyes, he wandered off to do precisely that.

Legolas sat for a moment toying with his braids until inspiration struck him.

"Sarai?"

"Yes, Leggy-kins?"

"Would you do something for me?"

"But of course: I love you, sweetie."

"Ride to Orthanc and ask Saruman if I can borrow his spare palantir. If he complains, remind him that he still owes me from our last poker game. Oh, and do you have one of these modems?"

"No, but Selrai does."

"Your sister who is attracted to Hobbits?"

"Yeah, her. If I tell her where to find Frodo, she'll give it to me."

And so she set off, only too willing to demonstrate her improbably perfect horsemanship.

Legolas grinned. It was always useful to have friends in many places. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	11. Falling Stars

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Eleven**

Thanks for all the reviews.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For any other, the journey to and from Orthanc would have taken many weeks. It was to the great misfortune of the inhabitants of Imladris that Sarai did not know this. They say that knowledge is power. What they do not say (mainly because those who say such things tend to know far too much for their own good) is that ignorance can also be power, especially when fuelled by adolescent lust. Thus, Sarai accidentally endowed herself with the power to warp time and space, reducing the arduous trip south to a mere two day jaunt, during which she tried to befriend many horrified small fluffy creatures.

So it was that, as soon as Lord Elrond had risen from his sick-bed, to which his wife and forcibly returned him and was pacing the halls grinning at all and sundry, she was busy in the woods setting up the device, having been reassured by Legolas that he only wanted to bring more girls to give her company. Fiddling with the wiring to her satisfaction, she stood up and kissed the Elf.

"That should do it."

Together, they made for a secluded grove, to conduct private experiments which would make Morgoth himself blanch and sue for mercy, clutching a stuffed toy.

But fate was conspiring against Imladris. Back in the world where she belonged, Sarai could barely plug in a hairdryer without shorting out the entire block. While her wiring skills miraculously managed to create a working portal, it was too much of a strain on a reality which was already tormented … a tear formed, just wide enough to allow a single Man … or Elf to pass through. The rift itself might not have been such a calamity, if treated with Vairë's darning skills, except the little problem of where it led from … and to.

Far, far away, across waters so wide and treacherous that few ships could cross them, a pair of grey eyes gazed into the sudden rent and lit up for the first time in centuries. This was his chance to take back what he had lost…

~*~

Elrond lent his back against the tree and sighed, running his fingers through Celebrían's silver hair. Something was in the air … something for which he had no name.

"Do you think that Thranduilion has already found a way to transport more of those girls here?" he asked.

"Probably. But let us not think of that tonight." His wife lent in to kiss him.

"You are right." He smiled against her lips. "I can think of many better things to do with my time."

His arms went round her, pulling her into his lap, preparing to explore all the possibilities.

A wailing shriek came from the skies, like that of the Nazgûl, but lower and, if possible, angrier. A shape plummeted from the heavens and hit the roof of the house with a resounding crash and the sound of splintering wood.

"What in the name of all the Valar was that?" Elrond jumped to his feet and began to storm towards the house with Celebrían beside him, both of them extremely annoyed at being interrupted. He half expected to find a dead body when he entered the main hall, but instead he saw a tall figure sitting upright on the table, rubbing at his head with hands which were weathered by the winds of the void.

"Eärendil?"

"Oh hello, son, can you help me outside so that I can have a look at Vingelot?" The Elf absent-mindedly picked fragments of roofing tile from his braids, looking no more astounded at this meeting than if he had been his offspring to a thrice-weekly chess game for the last millenium.

"Of course." The Peredhel dragged his sire to his feet and began to dust him off before a sudden thought arrested him.

"Father?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you not _in _Vingelot?"

"You will soon see," the Mariner answered grimly.

And soon Elrond did see. Gil-Estel was darting wildly round the sky. Studying it closely, they could see that its gyrations spelt out, "Ha ha. I won."

"'Tis Fëanor," Eärendil explained. "I know not how he came to be on my ship, but suddenly there he was, and the next thing I knew, I was experiencing just what a long way above the ground the stars are, and quite why Elves are not meant to fly … whatever your mother may say on the subject. Now, how in Arda do I get back?"

"You might ask Círdan very nicely," Celebrían quipped, evidently finding the whole situation remarkably amusing.

Just as he was staring contemplatively up at the bobbing light, it began to fall, faster and faster. In a flash, another body crushed the Mariner. One flailing arm held up a light so bright that the crowd of Elves, Men, Hobbits and fangirls who had begun to gather were dazzled.

"Who is that, Ada?" Elladan inquired.

"Well, the one underneath is your grandfather and I believe that we must also welcome Fëanor to Imladris, much though the idea repels me."

"Why is Lord Celeborn wrestling the kinslayer? I thought he was counting the cracks in the ceiling plaster, and pretending that you do not exist."

"I meant your other grandfather."

The twins' eyes became round with shock, just as Fëanor managed to disentangle himself from the Mariner and jump upright.

"It is mine, mine, do you hear me?" he shouted triumphantly and began to dart away into the woods.

"You idiot, you are doing it again!" Maglor exploded, stepping out of the crowd and moved to block his father's escape. "Do you think we wanted to leave Valinor? But it was all Atar wants this and Atar wants that, and Atar likes shiny things … Could you not have made do with one of mother's necklaces? But that would never be enough and we had to follow you. I do not even like the Silmarils, yet I find myself looking at even the chandeliers longingly. Well now enough is enough. You will come with me and I will show what you can do with your precious bloody lump of rock."

Fëanor stood still, amazed.

"But, Makalaure, you said that you liked them."

"At that point I would have done anything to get you to shut up about the wretched things."

As father and son stared at each other, Elrond felt his blood chill and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Glancing over at Celebrían, he could see that she seemed to be suffering the same sort of discomfort. Only Eärendil, rising to his feet and swaying slightly, seemed unaffected.

There was a boom, like thunder on the hottest days of summer, and a cowled figure appeared before them. Incidentally, he appeared on top of Legolas, squashing the princeling to the ground.

"Through what folly do you think you can escape your doom, son of Finwë?" the Vala boomed. "You have been told more than once that you are not allowed days out in Tirion and that it is not acceptable to try to bite Fingon's son, yet now I find you here in the Outer Lands. Oh, just stop squirming for a moment, you Sindar wretch, and wait until I have finished." The last words were addressed to Legolas, who was trying to crawl out from under his mighty feet.

"Are you Sauron?" Jemilamoina asked.

"Do not compare me to that neurotic little idiot," he snapped. "I am Mandos, Doomsman of the Valar, one of the Powers who guide this little world, and I am higher and more terrible than you can possibly imagine."

"Sort of like maths exams then?"

While Námo was busy glaring at her in a way which could melt rock, Fëanor slipped away, with Maglor and Eärendil in pursuit.

"Where has the boy gone? I blame it all on Vairë. If she had been a little quicker with the repair kit, the breech in my Halls would not have been such a problem. As it is, I have to chase the brat all over Arda, and Oromë is too busy hunting deer to help me. Would it be so much to ask that the fear of the dead stay where I have put them?"

And he was gone.

Legolas picked his face out of the mud.

"Am I safe yet?"

"Not if we get a say in the matter," Boromir said, wondering if he would be free from the girls if Legolas – just by accident, of course – was washed to the sea.

"Leave him alone, you great big bully," they chorused. "We all know what you want."

The Son of Gondor gave up all hope and nudged Elladan in the side.

"Would you know where to find the wine stores?"

"More?" the Peredhel appeared amused, but slapped the Man on the back and he and his twin led him to their secret stash.

After only a few minutes, Mandos returned with three Elves in tow, all looking very much the worse for wear. While it was possible to distinguish Fëanor due to his slight translucence, there was no telling the difference between Eärendil and Maglor, smeared as they both were with sticky mud and tree sap.

"Father?"

"Yes?" the pair of living Elves answered in unison.

"I meant my real father."

"Yes?"

The Doomsman took pity on the Peredhel and shoved one of the Elves forward. "This one is Eärendil. However…" He dragged the muddied Mariner back by the scruff of his neck, and shoving the Silmaril into his hand. "…He cannot stay as he has much to do this night. Hope does not manifest itself on its own, you know. Here is Maglor. Make sure he does not do anything stupid."

And with that, there was a blinding flash of light, and the three disappeared.

A voice lingered in the wind.

"You, Fëanor, will be cleaning up the mess you made in the Halls. And as for you, Eärendil, I would not like to see your wife's face when she realises what you have done to your clothes."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	12. Gondorian visitors

**Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Twelve**

*dances at all the reviews*

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Midnight in Imladris. A time for silence, for the snores of well-fed hobbits and … well, other activities best omitted from the chronicles. Or so it should have been, if it were not for the tattoo of hooves on the cobblestones, the loud voices in the courtyard.

Grumbling ferociously, Elrond Peredhil shrugged himself into a robe, while his wife sat on the edge of the bed, her tousled hair falling around her bare shoulders.

"Come back to bed, meleth-nîn."

"Nay." He shook his head in regretful refusal, trying to ignore the tantalising glimpses of skin exposed by the sheets. "I cannot."

"Do you think that we shall ever…"

"Not while we are thus inundated," he said with a wry grin and a brief kiss to her cheek… which turned into a rather longer kiss to her mouth, and a blush stealing across his cheeks.

But as he strode from the room, slipping effortlessly into the persona of the Lord of Imladris, his faint smile was replaced by a scowl which would make a Balrog decide to give up the whole fiery sword business. It did not help, of course, that he found Legolas pinning a girl against the fine draperies.

"Leave it," he warned, summoning up the same tone of voice which he had used on his children when they had reached the stage of a fight when they were pulling each other's hair. "Did you father not teach you not to play with your food, Thranduilion?"

Areltialia flushed and pouted, but the princeling barely spared him a smirk, engaged as he was in unbuttoning her shirt. These clothes were so much more useful, so much easier to remove, he reflected with a silent but evil giggle.

Elrond clenched and unclenched his fists, wondering if using Vilya to incinerate the pair would be a breach of the sacred trust. Probably not, but more important matters awaited his attention, and he stomped off, not caring whom he awakened.

Which did not matter that much, as the clamour in the courtyard would have awoken all of Eriador and summoned Manwë himself. The Hobbits were already wandering around, demanding breakfast, their incongruously large feet sticking out from the bottom of their nightshirts like so many rabbits.

Rabbits for hobbits, hobbits for rabbits, the ridiculous chant settled itself into mind, and he mused, not for the first time, whether he might be insane by the end of this.

The sight which met his eyes in the courtyard nearly confirmed it. There was a man, tall and dark, comforting Boromir, who appeared to be weeping on his shoulder.

"There, there, 'tis alright. You are a warrior, are you not, brother mine?" the stranger asked with a smile.

"Good day to you, or might I rather say, good evening … or good night…" Elrond's last words, rather spoiling the pose of a gracious elf-lord were, mercifully, spoken under his breath. "What brings visitors to Imladris in the dead of night?"

"Mae govannen, Lord Elrond." The elvish greeting, accompanied by a gracious bow, startled the Master of Rivendell. Looking closer, he still only saw a human, clad for travel. And one rather in need of a wash, at that. Yet with the heir of Isildur as a foster-son, he had become rather used to the filthy state of Men when they returned from the wilds. Perhaps it had been the same with Elros. But he had always thrown his twin in the sea before he had a chance to notice. And seaweed smelt far worse than the soil of Beleriand.

Before the uninvited guest had a chance to continue his answer, Boromir, his forehead creased in a frown, interjected, "Yes, Faramir. What brings you here? Were you not in Ithilien?"

Ah, Denethor's younger son. A small face, smeared with the remains of a cream bun. Elrond remembered with a sigh that it had been quite that long, even if one was only measuring in the years of men, since he had last left the North.

"Ah, well, father decided to recall me to the White City for a family picnic."

"Yes?"

"One featuring roast son."

"Again?" Boromir was incredulous. "But the last time was only a score of days before I left."

"Well, you know how he is." Faramir shrugged, but even in the darkness, Elrond could see the bitterness written on his face. "Uncle Imrahil has tuna sandwiches. Father has roast me. I am rather tired of trying to get the oil out of my clothes, so once I had sponged down the worst stains, I decided that a good long jaunt in the country was what I needed. And I met some rather interesting people…"

The figure who had stood unnoticed in all the hurly-burly emerged from the shadows. Moonlight shone on the armour of Rohan, highlighting the neat figure of a young warrior. But there was something not entirely right, something which reminded Elrond of … but the recollection slipped across his mind before he could grasp it.

"This is a friend. He will not tell me his name, but he proved himself useful when we came across a horde of the strangest creatures as we forded the Greyflood."

"You should know what orcs look like by now…" Boromir teased, looking more cheerful than he had in weeks.

"Will you ever cease with that one?" Faramir complained half-heartedly. "I was fifteen and it looked more like a bush. Nay, these were human and female, more or less, yet…"

But whatever he may have been intending to say was drowned out by the pounding of a fresh set of hooves on the path before the gate, more frantic, angrier than those of the younger Son of Gondor. The warrior moved stealthily in front of him, his pose, the way his hand touched lightly to the hilt of his sword, all profoundly defensive.

There was a curse in a loud voice, and then the steward of Gondor swung through the archway, the coat of his mount filmed with a faint sheen of sweat.

"Faramir," his voice was hoarse and angry. "Faramir, you forgot your cloak."

And the two brothers simply looked at each other and shrugged.

"I guess he's in the mood for a salad," Boromir whispered.

"What in the name of Mandos is going on?" The rest of the household, led by Aragorn, had, it seemed, arrived.

"This, Estel, is the Steward of Gondor," Elrond said with admirable composure, considering that his gaze was fixed on the dull scarlet marks on his seneschal's neck. He could only guess who might have left them there, and wonder who would be missing from the Last Homely House in the morning. While he hoped that it might be one of the mounting number of fangirls, but he had a suspicion that he might be lacking a person of rather more importance…

"Ecethelion's son…" The Ranger caught himself before he revealed too much. "Well, this is delightful, but I have places to be…"

The Master of Rivendell, all too acutely aware of what those places might be, halted him with an upraised hand.

"Stay, my son. I would have no less a person find a room for our new guests. Put Lord Denethor … let me think … ah, yes, I believe there is room with Lord Celeborn."

With a devious smile, the peredhel watched as the new arrival was led away. Turning back to the others, he was about to suggest that the Sons of Gondor could share a room, when a blond head poked round a pillar.

"Have I missed anything?" Legolas enquired, strolling into the moonlight.

"You have not been detained long enough for that," Glorfindel's keen, blue eyes shone with malicious humour. "I, however…"

But the Prince of Mirkwood was no longer listening.

"Éowyn!" he cried, his eyes fastening on the warrior by Faramir's side. "Éowyn, how long it has been!"

And with a quick hand under her chin, he kissed her. In a fraction of a second, a sword blade was held against his throat.

"You!" she spat. "This will give me great pleasure, you coward. This will be my revenge against you and your friend Grima."

With perfect fluency, she delivered a solid punch to his jaw. Legolas slumped to the ground, unconscious, to the cheers of all around. Even Elrond decided that his helpless laughter was more than justified.

Only Faramir stood silent, his face a mask of amazement.

"A girl…"

And as dawn broke, Elrond dreamt, and remembered…

TBC

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	13. Last Alliance

                                                                                    **Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Thirteen**

A flashback/dream/thingy of Elrond's to the Last Alliance, triggered by certain events in the previous chapter.  Featuring a Gil-galad cameo, yet more apoplectic rage from Celeborn and an unexpected visitor… Enjoy!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The nine terrible figures stood on the broken crag; their black garments whipped by the foul wind, which blew off the battlefield, carrying with it the reek of the dead.  Tendrils of mist drifted in and out of their faceless hoods.  Hatred was in their eyes and terror in their crooked hands.

"Bugger this for a game of soldiers," one said eventually.  "I am not really in the mood for petrifying a few Elves.  What say you that we go home and play poker?"

There were muffled sounds of agreement, and, with his otherworldly sight, the Witch-king could see frantic nodding and the third Nazgûl – always a bit of an idiot – searching his pockets to see if he could find his wallet.  He would need it – the other Riders had been mercilessly fleecing him for centuries.

"We cannot," the seventh reminded him primly.  "Our lord wishes us to…"

"Sod what he wishes us to," the Witch-king exclaimed in exasperation.  He could not imagine how such a petty bureaucrat had come to be gifted with a Ring of Power – it had probably been meant for his sister who had been infamous for biting the fingers off one suitor.  "Do you really think that he will notice?  He will be too busy trying to stop the orcs from eating the prisoners, and the prisoners from eating the dungeon walls – and getting that malodorous Balrog out of his bed."

"Really, you would think that a Dark Lord would have better taste in lovers," the second Nazgûl piped up.

"Oh?  I rather thought that Aralk had shared your bed first…"

It should have been impossible for the spectral form to blush, but he did so anyway.

"Ah … yes.  Now, what were you saying about poker?"

And so the encampments of the Last Alliance were left in peace for another night – well, by the forces of the Shadow anyway – for the fangirls went abroad and with them went chaos and the howls of those caught rather less than willingly in battlefield romances.

~*~

Lord Elrond of Imladris sat slumped over his desk, doodling rather sentimental poetry in the margins of the map spread out before him.  Realising what he was doing, he flushed vividly in the half-light and began to obscure it with firm pen strokes.  So engrossed was he in his task that he did not notice the warrior creep up behind him and slip slender mail-clad arms around his neck.  'Twas as skin brushed against skin that he was jerked into horrified awareness.

"Oh, Eru, no."  He banged his head on the trestle table, upsetting a bottle of thick black ink.  "Whoever you are, please cease these attentions.  You know not what you are doing.  Last night that abominable girl with the unsuitable attire shoved Isildur into my bed and I nearly fell over my own feet trying to escape.  And tonight, tonight … Nay, please believe I have no interest in these warrior bonding rites of which you speak."

His earnest declaration was punctuated by the steady thud of flesh against wood – and occasionally the overturned bottle.

"What a welcome you give to your soldiers."  The voice was light, musical, and so very familiar.  "Curses and ink in your hair – 'tis lucky indeed that your own tresses are so dark.  But in the end, I think I am pleased that 'tis not your pleasure to bed them all."

Elrond cracked one eye open and peered cautiously at the figure who sat, unconcerned, on the edge of his bed.  No Elf this young should be in the midst of the war…

"Remove your helm," he snapped in commandment.  "Do as I bid you, vile illusion of the Enemy!"

Two small pale hands reached up and unbuckled the leather straps, lifting the ornate, concealing headpiece away, and mithril hair shone free in the light of the single candle.

"Oh."

"So do I look like an orc?" Celebrían inquired gently.  "I confess I smell like one.  My tent-mate has little concern for even the cleanliness which can be found in this place.  Indeed, I believe that he never bathed before coming here either."

"You have a tent-mate?" Elrond's expression of stupefaction was replaced by one of protective rage.  "I have heard the stories … A young maiden of high rank and fair body in this place…  I will tear his eyes out and make him eat them with a mustard sauce and a small sprig of parsley, not to mention other parts of his anatomy…"

"Fear not, hir-nîn."  She stopped him.  "I threatened to kill him if he so much as touched me."

"What with?" Elrond pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off an incipient headache, feeling thoroughly baffled by the turn of events.

"My sword, of course.  I am a warrior," she mocked him affectionately.  "And if that fails, there is always this."  She slipped a bejewelled, but exceedingly sharp, dagger from her sleeve.

"Ah, I see."

"My father gave it to me."

"Really?" He found that between confusion and her presence, he could produce no more than monosyllables.

"Well, he intended me to use it on you if he you ever so much as laid a finger on me, but that course of events did not appeal to me."

"Oh."  He paused.  "Are you sure that you are not a male in disguise?  My experiences of the past few years have led me to believe that any who seeks entrance to my bed is more likely than not to be a male, impelled by one of these nefarious girls."

"A male in disguise as a female in disguise as a male," she chuckled.  "'Tis not very likely, is it, hir-nîn?"

"You have not been here, hiril," he stated darkly.  "You would be surprised … wait: did you just say that you would not reject my touch?"

"Aye."  Her heart pounding in her mouth, Celebrían began to shed pieces of armour.  When she reached a buckle which was awkwardly placed, Elrond came to stand behind her, his fingers trembling uncontrollably, his breath warm on the skin of her neck.

"So," he whispered against her hair.  "Why are you here?"

"I became bored of my father's attempts to persuade me into a marriage – did you know, he even sent me letters to that effect – anyway, marriage with a blond march-warden with less conversation than a dish of baked halibut," she said candidly.  "And…"

"And?"

"I like my fish a little less cooked and a little more exotic."  Celebrían turned to face him, twirling a strand of her hair nervously round her finger.

"You mean like those strange things with the purple ridges and the pink spots they catch off the coast of Harad?"

"Nay, I mean like a certain peredhil lord."  When he looked even more uncertain, she elaborated.  "I prefer you, Elrond.  You do not have pink spots, do you?"

"You would be surprised at this moment."  He laughed tenderly as she blushed.

"Oh… well that certainly makes things easier for me."  And she blushed again, deeper and darker than before.

"Really?"

"Would you stop saying 'really' as if you knew not what I was doing here," she said, exasperated.

"But I do not.  I presume that you have decided to join your father in the fight for the freedom of Middle-earth."

"Well, there is that, but…must I remove _all my clothes, and all of yours?" she complained.  "I am here to seduce you, Elrond of Imladris."_

"Oh!  Really?" 

It was this point that Celebrían decided that the best way to silence her love – who seemed to be remarkably deficient in wits for one accounted a master of lore – was to kiss him.

"So you…" Elrond drew back first, his grey eyes dark, his breathing ragged.

"Yes.  If you…"

But she got no further, having been swept off her feet and deposited rather swiftly on the low camp bed.

It was only after many minutes that her discomfort moved her to words.

"Meleth," she began tentatively.  "I have heard many tales of these things, although I know not of them from experience, as my father promised to garrote all who came within a league's distance of me, and please forgive me if I offend you, but should it be that hard?"

Elrond's rather notable eyebrows found their home under his midnight locks as he thought of certain portions of his anatomy.

"…But I am afraid it seems to be digging into me…"

He had not thought it was _that _obvious, and a quick glance down reassured him that his body's reaction should not be discomforting.  He noticed something else, however.

With a frown of dismay, he unbuckled his belt.

"'Twas my sword, not… well not what you imagined, celeb loth nîn…" he trailed off.

"Oh?  So … that.  Oh … that is much nicer.  And less sharp and leathery."

For a long time, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing and the protesting squeaks of the bedsprings.

"I see now that you are no male," the elf-lord remarked huskily, at last.

"Elrond!" Celebrían pretended to swat him, only to have her wrist caught in an iron grip and conveyed effortlessly to his lips.  "Ai … mmmm…"

But their reverie was interrupted by frantic pounding on the canvas of the tent.  The lady ducked under the mussed blankets, and Elrond tugged his no less dishevelled tunic over his head.

"In the name of all the Valar, Peredhil." Gil-galad burst through the tent flap, looking rather less calm and collected than usual.  "I cannot believe what has happened."

The half-dressed elf-lord cast a horrified glance at his bed, expecting a torrent of invective on the propriety of seducing the daughters of close allies to burst upon his head.  But none came.

"Me … me…" the High King continued, raking one large hand through his black hair until it stood up in all directions like a frightened hedgehog.  "They tried to … these … things… these orcs tried to… Last night 'twas a creature which I believe was an Atani female, but nevertheless appeared to have purple hair, and which offered to massage my back.  And now…"

The caped figure who had accompanied him into the tent drew back his hood with a fearful hand.

"Is it safe?"  Silver hair gleamed in the moonlight streaming through the open flap.

"No, but it would be a good deal more safe if you would close the Valar-forsaken door, Lord Celeborn."

Elrond began to pray that the aforesaid Powers would whisk him off somewhere else – any where, even into the study of his childhood tutor who had believed sincerely in the power of well declined Quenya verbs to change the world – and Celebrían with him, if her utter silence was anything to judge by.

"What ails you?" he asked. "Is it an attack?"

"Yes, pen-nîn tithen, it is an attack," Gil-galad responded sarcastically, tightening his belt which had hung loose.  "We wish you to charge up the slopes of Orodruin wearing naught but your undertunic, and attack Sauron himself with a dinner fork.  Once you have done with that, could you wrestle the Enemy in the Void that is Without, bearing only a pewter letter-opener…'

The peredhel blinked a couple of times at these unusually harsh words, but his full concentration was still bent on the huddled mass in his bed, and, more importantly, the single silver lock which trailed across the pillow…

"They tried to… they tried to … with him…" Celeborn stammered.

"These girls tried to make me take my Sindar colleague into my bed," the Noldorin monarch finished succinctly.  "I know not where they get their ideas…" His gaze followed Elrond's own.  "Oh, dear Eru, you have not succumbed to them, have you?  How much of the liquor Thranduil's troops distill have you drunk?  You will be very sorry for this in the morning … as will the other."

"Is that one of mine?" Celeborn's glassy eyes miraculously brightened  "If that is you, Haldir, I shall hang you from the nearest tree – and that is some distance away, believe you me.  You were supposed to marry my daughter – either you or one of your brothers."

The bundle of blankets quivered.

"You will hear more about this than you want to, march-warden."  In one stride, before either Noldo could stop him, he had crossed the room and yanked back the covers.  An expression alike unto a cow, which has just caught the first sniff of formaldehyde, wafted across his usually serene face.  "Cele … Cele …"

"Celebrían," she said helpfully.

"Celebrían.  What will your mother say when she hears of this?"

"Well, she did say 'Good luck, iell-nîn.  Your future husband will be hard to persuade, and mine you should prepare to tether to a tent-pole'."

"Aaargh!"  He threw himself at the Half-elven lord, but a solidly muscular arm was in his way.

"Now, now, mellon iaur," Gil-galad reproved him.  "Is this not better than Elrond bedding Haldir?"

"No."

"Then the Sindar are odder than I thought." He turned to Elrond.  "I bid you good night, ion-nîn.  Use it well."

And they did, despite the occasional screams of rage from the encampment of the Elves of Lóthlorien.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

ion-nîn – my son.  No, I'm not implying that Gil-galad was actually Elrond's father, just that he was his foster father.

pen-nîn tithen – my little one.

iell-nîn – my daughter.

hir-nîn – my lord.

hiril – lady.

**Feel free to review and tell me what you think.  Yes, I do realise that what you think is probably that I need to be confined in a mental institution :)**


	14. And what have we forgotten?

                                                                                    **Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Fourteen**

Wherein I discover that I am not too proud to grovel for reviews … please *g*

And regain some semblance of plot … sort of.

And the can-opener makes an appearance *smirks*

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Legolas smiled deviously around a mouthful of silver hair streaked with blue and purple, and clutched the girl closer.  This was one more for his tick-list in more ways than one.  Tarienariel had been holding out for a proposal of marriage, claimed that the royalty of Sighing-Trees-Wood would not approve of such a liaison.  While every elfling knew more of the geography of Middle-earth than she did, it was true that she would probably be grounded until the age of forty if her parents knew what she was doing know.  Which was half the point as far as the prince was concerned.

"Oh Leggy-kins."  She kissed him deeply, and he slid his hands down her sides, trying to ignore the insistent prickle of the dragon-scales with which she had accidentally endowed herself.  Glaurung would be proud.  And he thought idly of … well, that would be telling, would it not?  It was not as if he loved _her_ either, but she was certainly a mighty fine one, and a conquest besides…

Their clothes littered every available surface, and Tari would be picking leaves out of her training bra for months.  The chamber was empty, apart from the copulating pair, the stone pedestal adorned only with a pair of lurid day-glo green socks and a discarded bow.  Really, it was a terrible inconvenience to carry the wretched thing round all the time, but the fangirls seemed to expect it.  As if he would really be shot at in Rivendell…

An arrow soared past his ear and buried itself in Tari's shoulder – not deep enough to cause serious injury, but with the vehemence of Elu Thingol when confronted by scruffy Atani.  The self-proclaimed princess of a self-proclaimed realm squeaked like a startled rabbit and slid off her paramour's lap.  Legolas reached for something with which to cover himself up; finding nothing, he decided that he could not care anyway.

"You should not be able to shoot," she complained to the intruder.  "You are not a warrior, thee ist a boring old healer."

Elrond strode into view, clad in full armour, the burnished plates glinting in the sunlight, apart from the final streak of orc blood which had never come out.  A bow, which had once belonged to the king of Gondolin, was held tightly in one clenched hand.

"Idiot child, do you really think that I spent most of my time on the slopes of Mount Orodruin composing a treatise on the healing properties of clover?"

Celebrían, bouncing up and down on her toes by his side, clutching a quiver full of arrows and a kitchen knife, blushed.

//As I remember, meleth-nîn, your activities were far more interesting…//

 //And they are not now?//

//Prove it…//

//Half an hour.  Our chambers.//

//My father is busy commiserating with Lord Denethor.  We will be undisturbed…//

His face matching the hue of his robes, Elrond turned back to the girl.

"Do they not have a saying in your world, 'do not judge a book by its cover'?"

"My world art Middle-earth.  And you can't have been a warrior."

"Your world is most emphatically not Middle-earth, or I am an orc.  And yes, in the name of all the Valar, I was a warrior.  Think you that in those dread times, there was aught else I could be?" He scowled.  Then he started, sudden realisation fleeting across his face.  Imagine someone who has just realised that instead of unlocking their car, they have somehow managed to trigger a massive nuclear strike on Moscow.  A little more appalled.  There you have it. "Oh Eru, my chair.  You … in my chair…"

His eyebrows pulled together until they resembled the cleft in the Misty Mountains.  Celebrían decided that half an hour was far too long to wait to drag him to her bed.

Legolas and Tari did not even have the grace to blush.

"It was amusing, my lord," the former replied with a grin.

"And where else art there when you won't give me a room, and the Hobbits have taken over Leggy's for their poker game?"  Tari flicked her psychedelic hair back over one shoulder, narrowly avoiding blinding a squirrel which had been foraging for nuts and politely minding its own business. 

"I shall never be able to use that chair again.  I shall never even be able to _look upon that chair again."  The Master of Rivendell looked as queasy as when a young Arwen had left slugs in his riding boots._

"Come, hiril-nîn."  Celebrían tugged at his sleeve.  "There is naught to be done here, and argument cannot avail us, as our _guests_ lack even the manners of a seagull."

"But…"

//If you do not divest yourself of your clothes soon, I shall do it for you…//

"I bid you…"

But he was interrupted by a sudden flash of light.  A girl, garbed in robes suitable for an entirely different world, flashed into existence in the centre of the council chamber and landed with a thud, similar to a lump of dough being pounded against a baker's slab, in one of the chairs.  The three Elves and one half-elf, half-dragon, half-human gawked at her.

"I am Berialessa, daughter of Nessa and Beren," she proclaimed in a voice which was supposed to be majestic, but instead sounded as if she had been gargling seashells.  "I have been sent by Dumbledore to aid in the Ring-quest."  She batted her eyelashes prettily, and a cold wind swept through the chamber.  "Hang on, where is everyone?  Hello, Legolas, have you seen Haldir anywhere about?"

Elrond weighed up the advantages of interrogating this new visitor, and decided that, on balance, his bedchamber was definitely the place he wanted to be.  Grabbing his wife's hand, he pulled her through the corridors, fumbling at the lacings of her dress.

Swinging through the door of their rooms, he narrowly missed tripping over his sword, a pile of books the size of Thangorodrim, and one small creature who resembled a feather duster.  Grabbing Pippin by the scruff of his neck, he ejected the Hobbit and turned back to Celebrían.

"You dreamt of it, too, melethril?"

"Aye.  You were so very surprised to see me that day, were you not?" She smiled softly at the memory.

"Well, if you had been propositioned by the most unholy assortment of creatures, including, may I add, an orc, and Elendil's unwashed son, who smelt of the Dead Marshes and had no taste at all in jewellery, you would have been surprised to find the one you actually wanted standing in your tent."

"You wanted me?" She took a step closer, toying with the fastenings of his armour.

"Oh heavens, yes," he groaned, reaching under her remaining garments, luxuriating in the warmth of her skin.

"Would you do it again?"  
  


"Care to test my willingness, my love?"

"Yes…" She tugged at the leather thongs binding the metal plates together.  "Ummm … melethron, you were in somewhat of a rage when you donned your armour, were you not?"

"Yes, but I cannot see what possible relevance that can have now."  The Noldo bent his head and paid rather serious attention to the tip of her ear.

"Elrond … ai …" She batted him away regretfully.  "I can no more concentrate when you do that than I can sew."

"That was my intention."

"But it appears you pulled the knots rather too tight.  You are stuck."

"But, hervess-nîn, I _cannot be stuck.  It is remarkably inconvenient at this time," he wailed and sank down on the edge of the bed._

"Nevertheless, you are," Celebrían riposted tartly.  "'Tis a pity, but it seems that we must forgo our activities."

"No!" Elrond sprang up and began to pace around the room like Erestor when he had found some discrepancy in the tax records.  "I could…"

"You could…" She blushed.  "But…"

"Yes, but…"

"Aha!" Inspiration struck like a beam of wood – quite literally as so engrossed was he in this new thought that he banged his head on the lintel.  Bending down, he began to rummage through a crate – which included, among other things, Elros' rattle, Elladan's spare socks, a volume of exceptionally bad poetry on the qualities of Legolas' physique, which one of the fangirls had dropped while running for her half-elven life, and a flask of vintage miruvor.

"What are you doing, Elrond?  I always knew that your family were a bit odd to say the least, what with a seagull and a star, and several mad kings, but I never thought _you_ were touched in the head…"

"I have it!" Elrond straightened, brandishing an odd object in his hand.  "Celebrimbor gave it to Gil-galad, just before the unfortunate incident with the a power-crazed Maia and a flagpole."

"What is it?"

"He said it was a can-opener, although he could not explain what he meant by a 'can'.  Now there was one who was definitely a few leaves short of a tree."

"And what do I do with it?" Celebrían looked skeptical.

"Well, I found that it cuts metal."

"And how did you do that?"

"Gil-galad got locked in a storage trunk by accident, and I used it to cut through the hinges," Elrond said sheepishly – if there were sheep who were six foot tall and who grinned insanely.

"How?" 

"'Tis a long story, involving the High King making some rather unfortunate comments about Círdan's beard…"

"So you want me to use this on your armour?"

"Yes.  Well, this is actually Glorfindel's armour, as I could not find mine.  I suspect that your father has hidden it in a tree," Elrond looked abashed at this, but his wife merely giggled.

"Well, let me see to what use I can put this 'can-opener'."

~*~

Much, much later, the Lord and Lady lay side by side in bed, simply relishing the sensation of skin on skin.

"The bed was much less narrow this time," Celebrían spoke first, tracing fine patterns on his skin.

"And you made no mistakes regarding my sword."

"You fiend to remind me of that," she said severely.

"I found it endearing."  Elrond propped himself up on my elbow and smiled lecherously down at her.

"You did not.  You went very white, and then so red you must have been like a beacon to the enemy.  I am surprised that we were not interrupted by a horde of orcs and Sauron himself." She occupied herself with testing the sensitivity of his skin.

"I think I would have preferred that to an outraged Sindar lord, whose daughter I had just ravished," Elrond sighed.

"Really? I thought 'twas I who ravished you."  She paused, and a sudden thought struck her.  "Why did you think it prudent to wear so much armour?"

"'Twas a battlefield, meleth-nîn."

"Nay.  I meant this morn."

"Oh that.  Well, I wished to put as much solid metal – in the absence of sheer rock – between the … the creature and myself," he confessed.

"You feared being propositioned?" Celebrían teased.

"That does not seem to be the problem.  Rather, I feared having all my skin flayed off by a daft girl in possession of nails so long that they would put Curunír's to shame, and who might be over-enthusiastic in defence of that princeling."

"True…"

"Oh Mandos, Mandos, and thrice-bloody-Mandos."  Elrond sat bolt upright, nearly knocking himself unconscious on the headboard.  Abstractly, he noticed that his undertunic was dangling over the mirror.  "No….no … how can I not have remembered?"

"What is it, El-nîn?" Celebrían asked solicitously.  "You have not left my father and Maglor in the same room, have you?"

"Nay.  'Tis far worse."

"There is such a thing?"

"Aye."  He pulled a pillow over his face.

"Now, herven, I do not wish to be married to an asphyxiated corpse."  She pried the pillow from his hands.  "What ails you?"

"That girl landing in the middle of the council chamber should have reminded me, but I have long since ceased to pay attention to their ramblings."

"Should have reminded you of what?"

"The Ring," Elrond whimpered.  "We have forgotten about the Ring."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	15. The Council

                                                                                                **Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Fifteen**

Ice cream with many, many toppings to all reviewers.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Glorfindel and Erestor came running at the disturbance, and Celebrían pulled the sheet rather hurriedly over herself.  Elrond noticed with distracted bemusement that his advisor looked more than a little disheveled, and his seneschal was grinning like a Hobbit who had just discovered a mushroom farm.

"We heard a crash and wondered if your father-in-law was trying to murder you again.  If you wish us to leave, mellon iaur…"

"Nay.  No time."  The elf-lord hopped from the bed only belatedly realising that he was wearing nothing very much at all.  With a scowl which forbade any lewd remarks about the amount of time he had spent in his chambers in the last half millenium – and it had been considerable – he shrugged himself into a gown.  "The Ring…"

"Vilya?  But surely you are wearing it, my lord."  Erestor was definitely a few Valier short of a booze-up in Almaren today.

"Not Vilya.  The Ring.  The One.  That mad Maia's nasty little trinket," he hissed.  "And do not speak of the Three."

"What of the One?" Glorfindel asked mildly.  "Has the Ringbearer lost it to one of those unpleasant girls in a poker game?"

"We forgot about it.  It should have been on its way to Mordor with the year's turning, and yet it is still here."

Unfortunately, the din had roused Celeborn from his latest round of bait-the-Kinslayer.  Maglor, clutching his bleeding forearm, staggered into the room after him.  And, if looks could kill, the peredhil lord would have been six feet under with a tasteful marble monument over his head.

"You … you … you have ravished my daughter, you knave," he howled and threw himself at his son-in-law's ankles.  Elrond sidestepped, tripped over his discarded boots, and fell … straight into Celebrían's arms.

//Oh dear Eru//

//You did not wish to ravish me?// she teased.

//Yes.  But I would rather do so when there is a mountain range and an impassable gale between your father and myself//

"Up you get."  She shoved him to his feet and pulled the sheet tighter around herself – which was just as well, as at that moment the room was suddenly invaded by four rather intoxicated Hobbits, one half-dressed Sindar archer and a pack of fangirls, at least one of who claimed to be half-unicorn, as evidenced by the horn sprouting through her tufty black hair.  All of them glowed – unpleasantly reminiscent of the Silmarils crossed with a hormonal supernova.  Poor Maglor looked overwhelmed, and curled up in the corner, wailing that he should have known better than to follow anyone who ironed his socks, even if that individual did happen to be his father.

"Out!  Out!  Everyone out now before I find where Elladan last left Aeglos, when he was trying to work out if he could use it as a hammer."  He sank down on the edge of the bed, burying his face in his hands.  "And you, Makalaurë Fëanaró."

"Are you sure?  Might not your wife have inherited the Sindar tendency to lunacy?" the Noldo inquired, uncurling from his hedgehog-like ball.

"If you remember, the blood of Elu Thingol flows in my veins.  And she is the _only _creature in Imladris from whom I do not need protecting at this moment," Elrond muttered sourly.

As she watched the last surviving son of the Spirit of Fire scuttle from the room like a large, angsty beetle, Celebrían pressed a kiss to the tip of her husband's ear.

"Are you certain that you do not need protecting from me, melethron-nîn?" she whispered.  "Are you not afraid that _I might ravish _you_?"_

"N … aaaah…" She had slipped her hands inside his loose gown and skimmed her hands tenderly over the skin of his torso, her mouth resuming its attentions to his ear.  "Yes."  He pushed her away regretfully.  "Not now, melethril.  The Ring…"

He hopped around the room on one foot, pulling on garments at random, until he was dressed as befitted his station.  Celebrían slipped her simple gown over her head, and he helped her with its fastenings, trying rather unsuccessfully to concentrate on the declensions of Quenya nouns and the correct method of constructing a functioning siege-engine with only a small piece of string, a half-chewed piece of dwarf bread and a child's spinning top.  

Catching her hand in his, he hurried through the corridors to the council chamber.

~*~

"But can we not use it _against _the Enemy?" Boromir declaimed passionately.  "It is a gift to us…"

The fangirls cast him spiteful looks which would have had Tulkas cowering in a corner, and Morgoth wishing that the Void was just a _little further away._

His brother, however, appeared thoughtful, although that could have had something to do with Éowyn's hand clasped firmly between both his own.  The shield-maiden of the Riddermark leant her head on his shoulder and sighed happily.

Elladan and Elrohir swung their legs and shuddered convulsively whenever the fangirls looked their way.

Maglor had crept a little closer to the Ring, and was tapping it, muttering about inferior craftsmanship and the need for really good alloys when forging creations which would have all the world and their pack of orcs up in arms.

"You cannot wield it.  None of us can," Aragorn called from the archway.  "Mae govannen, ada; have we missed anything of importance?"

Arwen stood at his side, flushed, with a few twigs still clinging to her black hair.

Elrond looked up from his perch on the floor – all the other seats were taken, and he refused to use his own chair after its misuse earlier that day – and scowled.

"A little bickering," he sighed.

Unnoticed, Boromir had paced across the room.  He reached for the Ring, and stepped on Maglor's hair in the process.  Therein lay his mistake.  The kinslayer howled, and headbutted him in the kneecaps.

"Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh bruzum-ishi krimpatul…" Gandalf boomed, and the sky darkened ominously.  Sarai looked around to see where the flock of birds was.

"Elrond."  Celebrían poked him in the ribs.

"Yes, hervess-nîn?"

"Are you sure that the House can take this strain?"

"Never before have the words of that speech been uttered here in Imladris."  He pulled himself sternly upright, fully an elf-lord of noble blood, and tried to ignore Asjsknksflia proclaiming that she knew exactly the counter-curse to the Black Tongue.

"I do not ask your pardon, Master Elrond.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  And I could no more stand Maglor's caterwauling – call youself a minstrel? – than I could stand Aulë's attempts to woo Yavanna by standing underneath her balcony and singing the Ballad of the Nine Blind Hedgehog Maidens and their Little Anvils."

Elrond breathed deeply to quell his exasperation, and soldiered on.

"The Ring must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fires from whence it came."

And all hell broke loose, as it had when the keys to the storerooms had accidentally fallen into Merry and Pippin's hands, just before Aurora had wished to make a mushroom poultice for some rather interesting rope burns she had acquired on portions of her anatomy which shall – thankfully – remain nameless.  

"I shall be dead before I see the Ring in the hands of an Elf."

"That could be arranged." Grief does strange things to us, and Celeborn had conveniently forgotten that many a time he could have cheerfully have chopped Elu Thingol's head off himself.

"I will take the Ring to Mordor, although I do not know the way," Frodo spoke up, his eerie eyes wide.

"You are the Ringbearer," Elrohir pointed out.

"Oh yes."

"If by my life or my death, I can protect you, I will."

"Where he goes, I go."  Arwen looked rather cheerful at the prospect of secluded nooks in the Misty Mountains.

"You have my bow."

"Must we really?" Elrond asked.

"And my axe."  It was buried deeply in a chair arm, but it could probably be pulled out – with a strong team of horses.

"You have my magic.  Dumbledore sent me for this task," the earlier arrival piped up, much to the confusion of all and sundry.

"And my…"

"And my…"

"Hey, mister Frodo is not going anywhere without me…"

"Wait for us…"

"And my combat skills…"

"And my special enchanted Cheerios."

"And the Eaglestone of Ardour…"

"Oh no, atar is not at it again, is he?" Maglor moaned.  "We told him … well Caranthir and Celegorm were too busy pulling the wings off insects … but the rest of us told him that his skills would be better employed in making a gift for atara, but would he listen?  Of course not.  Mad as a box of Balrogs."

"I bring to ye olde Fellowshipe my talent in speaking to animals," Turquoise Sapphire put in, flicking her green hair out of her mauve eyes and retouching her lipgloss.  "Come here little birdie, and tell me what nasty, nasty Mr. Sauron is doing now."

The bird cocked its head on one side and began to chirrup at her, despite its underlying conviction that it should be somewhere else, preferably eating worms instead of talking to this lunatic manling who really needed to dye her hair a normal colour.

"Oh really … ooh, that _is _wicked…"

"What in the name of all things that should remain unnamed are you doing, sparrow?"  There was a sudden gust of wind, and Faramir of Gondor decided that it would be prudent to sit very still, and look into his Rohirric love's eyes – as he was doing that anyway.

The sparrow looked as awkward as it is possible for a sparrow to look, and tried to sneak off, but the fangirl's hand restrained him.  While she was petting him like he was a very small dog – of the yappy, ankle-biting kind - he knew precisely what was about to happen…

The whirlwind resolved itself into a towering figure, cloaked in majesty and terrible in kindness.

"Come here."

The sparrow hopped onto his shoulder.

The Lord of the Breath of Arda stroked its ruffled feathers vaguely.

"And who are you who dares to command the birds of the air?"

All the others were bowing deeply, but she did not seem to notice.

"I am Turquoise Sapphire…"

"No you are not."  He cut her off sharply.  "You are Jane Brown of Iowa, but be that as it may.  You do not and cannot call the birds of any world to do your bidding, much less to listen to your inane ramblings.  I suggest that you do not try.  And you, my little feathered friend, you will spend the rest of your days being watered profusely with Nienna's endless wretched tears.  Excuse me: I must return: Varda is calling to me.  But first, Peredhil, be careful of your choices.  The road is long."

And he was gone, faint words wafting back on the wind, something about melted chocolate and strawberries which made the assembled mass cringe.

"Well."  Elrond helped Celebrían to her feet, and dusted his own knees off.  "I think that this proves that Mistress Sea-Green-Blue-With-Yellow-Polka-Dots…"

"Turquoise Sapphire."

"…Can be of no use to the Fellowship."

"I'm going anyway."

"And me."

"And me."

"And me."

"Does all of Arda wish to go?"

"All of Arda and their pet frog," Glorfindel said with a laugh.

"Then if the Fellowship is to be so swelled in ranks, there is no help to be found in stealth, and we must rely on force of arms alone."  He paused, bracing himself for what came next.  "And I shall go with you."

"Will you leave me here?" Celebrían looked decidedly displeased.

"If you would…"

"Do you not remember that night in Mordor, my love?" She leant close and kissed him softly, much to the horror of the fangirls.

"I shall find you a sword."

"You will need support if you are to travel with this troop of hooligans."  Glorfindel was at his shoulder, his face unusually grave.  "And Erestor will come, of course."

The advisor made no demur.

The younger lords of Imladris perked up somewhat.  It had to be better than listening to Lindir bewail the fate of his storerooms for the coming months.  And there were always orcs…

"I shall travel with you, ion-nîn."  Maglor dragged himself on the floor.  "I can no longer wield a blade, but I can always headbutt evildoers for you.  And I have aeons of experience of bloodshed."

"And always the wrong blood," Celeborn sniped.

"You are coming with us, Adar.  Maybe Ammë will be able to keep you in Lothlórien this time," the Lady of Imladris added in a dark whisper.

"Nine Riders and … oh, Mandos knows, however many Walkers.  So be it.  We shall be the Fellowship of the Ring."

Denethor finally chewed through his bindings and rushed into the chamber.

"I am coming with you.  Long nights in the Redhorn Pass … we will need barbecues…"

Faramir looked decidedly frightened.

~*~  
  


So much later that night that the first hue of dawn was brightening the horizon, Peony sneaked into the chambers of the Master of Rivendell.  One night of passion, she decided, one night of fangirl-loving before the darkness overtook them…

A long, Ithil-silvered arm reached out from under the covers and flung her casually throîugh the window, where she landed on the head of Legolas' latest bit of skirt.

"Now; where were we, meleth-nîn?" Elrond pulled his wife closer to himself, toying with her hair.

"Before I disposed of the intruder?"

"Before that.  I believe that we were enjoying our last night in a proper bed…"

And the rest was silence – of at least as far as the chronicles tell.  But the chronicles usually lie, so there was probably not much in the way of silence.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**A/N:** I apologise if the Black Speech is not spelt in the normal way.  I had to use a French edition as I could not find my English version.

Nice blue button.  Pretty blue button.  Revenge is sweeter when it's shared.


	16. Fangirl Activism

                                                                                                **Siege Mentality**

**Chapter Sixteen**

I'm going to try a little of Kalurien's reverse psychology here: No, no, of course I don't want you to review. It's never occurred to me that you might review… *eg*

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Celebrían emerged from her chambers, where she had left her husband sitting amid his arrayed possessions and cursing all and sundry in language which would have made Morgoth's toes curl.  She immediately wished she had followed her first instinct, which had been to pull Elrond back into bed – or, indeed, onto any space of floor that was not taken up by reams of parchment, darned tunics, or pointy objects.

Aramithea was hollering at the top of her not inconsiderable voice and passing out brightly coloured badges to anyone who did not have enough wits about them to decline.  The lady of Imladris caught Glorfindel's eye, and he hurried over, his fair face a mask of worry, pressing one of the small metal circles into her hand.

"What does she say?  I cannot understand."  Indeed, Aramithea was even less intelligible than your average fangirl – that is to say, possessing the capacity for rational speech of a chicken nugget.

"Read it." Glorfindel looked grim – although that could have had something to do with the vast quantities of Gondorian wine he had ingested the previous night.  She did as he bid her.

_"Elrond loves Legolas.  You know he does."_

"What?" Celebrían decided to take matters into her own hands – quite literally, it turned out, as she grasped the lapels of Aramithea's chic overcoat and hefted her several inches clear of the marble tiling.  "What mean you by this?" She brandished the badge in her free hand.

"Can't you understand, you daft witch?" the fangirl sneered.  "Perhaps you can't read.  Your husband loves Leggy-kins, not you.  He only has sex with you because you have blonde hair."

At that point, Celebrían decided that it was too amusing to be bothered with and dropped the blathering half-Maia to the floor.  She began giggling, and Glorfindel joined in, relieved that – at least for the moment – the Last Homely House was still standing, and had not been toppled by the rage of its lady.  

Lord Celeborn began to dance a jig along the corridor, dragging a very confused looking son of Fëanor along with him.

"Ha ha!  This explains it.  Will you come home now, my daughter?"

"Is this of your doing, ada?" Celebrían inquired, trying to sound severe between her fits of laughter.

"Nay." Celeborn bounced up and down on the spot.  Maglor's head collided with the ceiling several times. "'Tis merely that I agree with it."

At that moment, Elrond made his appearance.  Not only did he appear very irate, but also he was attired only in his breeches and the flag of Ereinion Gil-galad, which was draped loosely around his shoulders.

"What is wrong, celeb loth nîn?" He ducked instinctively to avoid the stale bread roll that Celeborn lobbed at his head, and it glanced harmlessly off the wall – or maybe not quite so harmlessly as, at a distance of several hundred yards, it hit Gandalf's treasured, and rather battered, hat squarely.

"Here." Celebrían, rocking backwards and forwards with mirth, passed him the offending object.  He took one look at it and scowled.  Small furry creatures began to scurry for cover, sensing the impending storm.

"What.  Is.  The.  Meaning.  Of.  This?" Elrond ground his teeth together, and tried to look as imposing as it is possible to in a pair of breeches that have seen far, far better days and a muddied banner.  Vilya obligingly diverted a hurricane, which had been hovering over the Sundering Seas, to howl across the valley.

"Well, it's obvious." Aramithea tossed her hair scornfully.  "He's blond and cute.  Who wouldn't want him?  You only shag your wife because she looks a little bit like him…"

"Celebrían looks not a bit like that outrageous oaf." The clouds roiled and seethed, and the first drops of rain fell on the waving treetops.

"…And you don't want us to have him.  Therefore, you must want him for yourself," she finished with a triumphant flourish, blithely unaware of the fell force that was to fall upon her,

"I care not if you have him or no." The rain beat against the walls, boiling into the gathering puddles and swelling the Bruinen, as Elrond crumpled the badge in his hand.  "I merely wish that you would do so elsewhere."

"Ah hah!  That's because you don't want to see him fall in love with anyone else."

"And what of the feckless princeling?  I suppose he is in love with me?" Elrond asked tiredly.

"Oh no." Aramithea preened.  "He loves me."

"No, me."

"Me."

"Me."

"Me."

The Master of Rivendell watched with some satisfaction as the fangirls resolved themselves into a tangle of tussling limbs.  Celebrían, finally recovering from her fit of the giggles, grinned at him.  "So it is true what they say."

"And what do they say, my love?" Elrond tugged her into his arms, ignoring the death-glares sent his way by Celeborn of the Golden Wood.  It would be hard to tell if this embrace was more for the lady's comfort or the lord's, although the sensible gambler would probably choose the latter.

"Evil contains the seeds of its own downfall."

"Hmm … perhaps we should not try to lose all the fangirls immediately.  We could always inflict them on Sauron." The elf-lord's rage had not entirely abated, and the Bruinen, tested to its limits, burst its banks.  A tumbling wave lapped at the foundations of the house, and spat something at Elrond's feet, rather like a small elfling who has been confronted with a plate full of Brussels sprouts.  It turned out to be one very soggy and extremely disgruntled Istar.

Gandalf hauled himself upright and watched the water draining from his clothes disgustedly.

"What did you think you were doing, Master Elrond?  Need I remind you that the Ring you bear is no trinket to be used lightly?" he hissed, and his host looked abashed at the actions of Celebrimbor's craftsmanship.  Really, he decided, it would have been wisest if the entire House of Fëanor had been allowed near nothing more perilous than a sandcastle.  "I only saved myself from watery grave at the confluence of the Bruinen and the Mitheithel by grabbing onto a passing bundle of floating bindweed."

"Hey!" Pippin shook himself like a small, scruffy dog, and tried to struggle free of the Maia's ferocious grip.  "I am no bundle of bindweed.  If you must know, I was fishing for some nice trout for second breakfast, and I got caught up in something green which hit me around the head when it came at me all of a sudden from upstream."

"Be careful, Peregrin Took, or _I shall finish the task it started," Gandalf warned him, and placed him on the floor, returning to the rather more important business of wringing the water out of his pouch of pipeweed.  The Hobbit appeared a little shaken for a moment, but then grinned maniacally, his blue eyes lighting up, and pulled a small and only slightly dented-looking trout from the pocket of his waistcoat.  And then another.  And two from the other pocket.  And half a pound of mushrooms from his coat.  And a tiny frying pan from inside his socks.  Concluding that it would be too much effort to find his way to the kitchens, and anyway his hunger needed assuaging immediately, he sank down cross-legged on the floor, and, beckoning to Merry, began to make a tidy little blaze right there in the middle of the corridor._

Elrond glanced to his wife for support, but she was too busy trying not to fall over from laughing so much.  

Denethor popped his head out of his chamber and looked speculatively at the fire.  Alas for his nefarious intentions, his son had commandeered one of the empty storage cupboards and retired there with the Shield-maiden of the Riddermark, vowing that he would not emerge until the Fellowship of Eru-Knows-How-Many (as it had come to be known) was ready to depart.  Maglor was busy exacting his revenge for the ceiling-induced concussion that he had acquired courtesy of Lord Celeborn; he was presently holding the Sindar Elf over the flames to see if his silver hair could be forged into anything more useful.

"Celebrían…"

"Yes, herven?" 

"Are you not worried that Maglor will set your father alight and then we will have to take him back to your mother in a spice jar?"

"Not really." She shrugged, her lips quirking with the effort of repressing her laughter.  Elrond found it really quite irresistible.  "Ada has his ways of saving himself.  Ah, look now…"

Indeed, Celeborn managed to fling himself away from the kinslayer, squashing a couple of Hobbits in the process.  The son of Fëanor looked in bafflement at his suddenly empty hand, and then over at the elf-lord who was grinning wildly and pulling faces, and back at his hand.  Celebrían lost control of her mirth and began to weep with amusement.

Elrond realised that no one would notice one more instance of insanity in this madhouse, and that he might as well take advantage of this.  With one swift movement, he pinioned his wife against the nearest wall.

"It seems that my lady finds much amusement in the events of this morning," he growled, trailing off as she squirmed happily against him, pulling at the ends of the poor, misused banner to bring him into closer contact.

"Yes.  Does my lord not?"

"I confess that I do not." He brushed his forehead against the silver crown of her head.

"Well, I feel that it is my obligation as a dutiful wife to remedy that." She hooked one finger into the waistband of his breeches and pulled him back towards their chambers.

"When have you been a dutiful wife?" he laughed tenderly, deciding that this morning was not, after all, so bad.

"When it suits me…"

"And not when it might mean saving me from spending an evening discussing nautical knots with a certain Teler shipwright, who still, after nigh on six thousand years, cannot tell me apart from my long departed brother?" Really, the movement of her hand against his exposed skin was quite entrancing.

"Especially not then." Celebrían released him, but only to sweep a collection of assorted objects from their bed, and then sank down and smiled up at him invitingly.  With a groan of desire he took her in his arms, surrendering himself to the caresses of body and mind that, blissfully, blotted out the chaotic sounds that crept under the door.  In a long-practised manoeuvre, they divested themselves of their clothes and crawled under the rumpled sheets, never losing contact with one another, and fell into the age-old dance.

~*~

"Ada?  I have your armour.  Elladan and I found it in… Oh Mandos, do you have to do this?" The younger peredhel looked appalled as he averted his eyes from the sight of his parents curled contentedly around one another.  He had gone an interesting shade of green.

"Apparently so," Celebrían said wryly.  "Although it remains to be seen why you do not knock."

"Well, we … that is to say, Elladan, Estel, Arwen and I … thought that, after his encounter with Aramithea, ada would either be hitting things or have retreated into a ball in the corner.  We imagined that the news of the recovery of his own armour would cheer him up…"  
  


"It is pleasant to know that my children have such faith in the health of my mind." Elrond retrieved his head from under the pillows, just as the others clattered into the room, clutching various pieces of his armour.  "Mae govannen." He did not sound as if it had been so very _well_ met, and indeed he had been planning to see only his wife for the rest of the day.  "And where did you find my armour?  I had thought that it was up a tree somewhere."

"No, ada." Arwen looked cheerful.  "We did inspect all the foliage first, but then Estel had a brilliant idea.  We found it in the rooms of Charity: she had been hoping that she would be able to give it as a gift to Legolas."

"Marvellous: next they will be suggesting that I should turn the lordship of Imladris over to him."

"Well…" Isildur's heir absent-mindedly picked a bit of twig out of his messy hair.  "She wished that as well…"

"And?"

"And we introduced her to Maglor.  It appears that your foster-father is remarkably protective of both your domains, and your lordship of them.  He has found a diversion from trying to bite daeradar.  Instead, he has trapped her behind an impromptu barricade, and is demonstrating '102 things that Fëanor did wrong – the blasted idiot of a blasphemous magpie who really should have listen to his wife, and was, all in all A Bad Thing, and I have heard he is presently engaged in pulling my brother's hair for throwing the Silmaril away despite the fact that it burnt him' for her benefit.  I believe that there is a considerable amount of fire involved."

"Thank the Valar for this unprecedented instance of good sense on his part.  And now, if you would be so good as to put it about that we shall be leaving with the dawn, I would be most pleased.  'Tis best not to delay the inevitable any longer."

Once they had departed, he began shovelling clothes and containers of medicinal powder into his pack, wondering what the morrow would bring.  It would probably not be very pleasant, he concluded.  He was right.

TBC

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

* * *


	17. Horse Troubles

**Siege Mentality**

****

Chapter Seventeen

Thanks to **Nemis** for betaing this.

Sorry that it's been such a long wait.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Elrond slapped his riding gloves impatiently against one thigh. The snapping noise they made on impact was, despite the accompanying stinging sensation, immensely satisfying - but not, he reflected ruefully, as satisfying as it would be to throw them at someone's head. Possibly his own. The line of fangirls simpered and fluttered in front of him, seemingly blithely unaware of his increasingly wrathful presence. Angel turned to the very unchaste Chastity to check her lively makeup. Five girls were simultaneously throwing themselves at Legolas, who was more than a little pleased by this turn of events. All were wearing outfits that would have provided decent courage for an anemic ant, and were certainly going to leave them with an interesting selection of cuts and nettle-stings after ten minutes on the trail. For a minute, Elrond let his attention drift to his own wife, clad in sturdily practical breeches and tunic, her silver hair caught back in a simple queue. His eyes softened a little and a smile touched the corners of his mouth as she met his gaze, one small hand holding the edges of her cloak together. But that brought his thoughts back to where they started from. He cast a suspicious eye over the milling crowd, and cleared his throat. They paid him not one blithe bit of notice. Celebrían rolled her eyes at him, and, stepping closer, prodded him in the small of the back. He raised his voice, shifting his grip on the hilt of his sword. "Ladies." They looked a little surprised at being addressed thus, although that could have had something to do with the rather excessively stringent use of eyebrow tweezers. The previous night, Imladris had rung with the melodious sound of fangirls screaming in self-inflicted pain.

"Ladies." He persevered, more through hereditary stubbornness than any inkling of hope. However, over the last several thousand years, between the tutelage of a sailor, a kinslaying minstrel and an extraordinarily stiff-necked High King, and, when push came to shove, the desperate school of the battlefield, had endowed him with a fine speaking voice. Now, all those years of experience had reached their apogee. The Valaroma would have seemed like a tin whistle beside this. "Will one of you tell me which of your gaudily painted number has stolen my wife's horse?"

The fangirls, like a many-headed, hormone-driven and technicolour monster, shook their heads in unison. Elrond sighed impatiently, feeling the now-familiar headache gathering behind his eyes. "Who. Has. Stolen. My. Wife's. Horse?" He took a step closer to the throng, his sword clinking ominously in its sheath. "Do not forget that I am under no obligation to you, and I shall feel no compunction at all not to leave you behind."

They gasped. No threat of death or dismemberment could have been worse than the promise to separate them from their precious Leggy-kins. They turned on each other with their customary moral generosity, and several hair-pulling spats broke out, punctuated with highly improbable and inappropriate lyrics garnered from a century mercifully far in the future. Maglor had stood among the ruins of Alqualondë with the blood of his kin slicking his sword-blistered hands; he had watched in horror as his beloved older brother threw himself to a fiery death. But even that had not inured him to this; he clamped his scarred hands over his ears and wailed in true despair at this musical torture. There were more flat notes here than in the Orcs' annual Yuletide musical. Even the one where Morgoth had performed live in a frilly pink tutu.

Elrond, not feeling much better himself, was sorely tempted to bury his head in the crook of his wife's neck and leave it there until all the rest of the world gave up and decided to leave him alone.

"I don't have it."

"Of course you bloody do. I saw what you were doing to Legolas the other day…"

A sudden silence fell, and Elrond opened his eyes cautiously. Celebrían, however, closed hers, shielding them with one delicate hand. Her expression could be closely compared to that of Námo when he realised that, yes, he would be lumbered with Fëanor's infinitely demented company until the ending of Arda. In other words, mental excruciation verging on physical pain.

"I got lots of lovely provisions, just like I said I would, Mister Frodo. I said I would, did I not?" Samwise Gamgee staggered into the courtyard dragging a sack behind him. The sack was at least twice his size and thumped heavily across the flagstones, taking chips out of the marble. Erestor moaned unhappily at this wanton damage, and looked not much cheered up when Glorfindel slung one arm around his shaking shoulders. The Ringbearer's face, however, cleared miraculously. His dinner plate sized eyes were suddenly as bright as a neurotic nebula.

"Oh, whatever would I do without you, Sam?" He smiled. "What did you find?"  


"Oh, some nice carrots, and two pounds of sugared walnuts, and…" He paused dramatically and Celebrían's worst fears were confirmed. "…Well, there was this horse, and it looked like it would be much more cheerful if it was a nice pot of stew, so I obliged it." He hefted an enormous sealed cauldron from the sack and presented it to his master. Frodo grinned. Merry and Pippin bounced up and down like a pair of over-caffeinated bumblebees. An apoplectic storm clouded the Master of Imladris' noble face. With a noise like an enthusiastic elfling tearing silk draperies, he unsheathed his sword. Although the peredhil twins ducked for cover, the Hobbits merely looked confused. What could anyone possibly have against the use of a useless horse to make a very useful stew?

"Tell me." The elf-lord's tone was measured, his words even and flowing. With an effort, he mastered his anger so that not a trace of anything out of the ordinary showed in his bearing and demeanour. Maglor, who had seen this only once before, after the Sack of Sirion, and had found it absolutely terrifying in an elfling counting less than ten summers, tried to sneak away. When the Lord Celeborn's outstretched arm barred his way, he sank to the ground in a huddle and began to curse his father methodically. Without those damn jewels, he would be warm and safe in Tirion beyond the seas, but now…

"Tell me," Elrond continued, and Celebrían rested a calming hand on the nape of his neck, "was this horse perchance a black palfrey?"

"I don't know nothing about palfreys, Mister Elrond sir, but it was a black horse." He grinned, and the elf-lord … well, we would say that he grinned back, but it would be more accurate to say that he bared his teeth. "I saved some of the fur, if you'd like a belt."

"Fool! That was the Lady Celebrían's horse which you so callously disposed of." He started forward, brandishing his sword before him, only to find himself restrained by an iron grip. The elf-maiden in question flexed her fingers around his wrist pointedly. "I should never have taught you to do that," he grumbled.

"But thank you for doing so." She traced the veins in his wrist with one finger, and despite himself he felt his rage replaced with a rather different emotion. "You cannot. You must not. It would be wrong for you to kill the Perian over such a thing. Save your blade for what is to come."

"True," he conceded grudgingly, "but what are we to do? I will not go without you, and there is no horse for you. This frippery flock of fools are all decently mounted, while you, hervess- nín, are summarily unhorsed."

"Fear not," she said calmly. "I shall share."

"Share?"  


Lord Celeborn proved to be in this instance rather more quick-witted than his son-in-law, lore-master or no. The Sindar lord ground his teeth and reached for his own sword. Fortunately, he had been deprived of his weapons by his grandchildren, who were leaving nothing to chance. 

"Share a horse."

"With whom?"

"With me, of course. I offer my services freely to this charming lady." Legolas stepped forward and swept a florid bow. "I shall share my horse willingly with the Lady Celebrían."

A pulse started in the back of the peredhel's neck, as imperious as the drumbeats of war. He hurriedly retrieved his sword from where it had lain by his feet, almost stabbing himself in the toe as he did so. But there was worse to come. Far, far worse.

Celebrían raised one hand in protest. "Nay, Prince Legolas. I would not have it so. I have shared a mount with my husband before, and it is my intention to do so now."

"But." The princeling smiled dazzlingly, absolutely confident of his ability to charm anything female within a seventy league radius. "'Twould not be proper for so great a lord to be thus deprived of half of his horse. That would be the task of his standard bearer, and thus I offer myself for both tasks." The expression of unctuous insincerity remained plastered across his face. He had planned to nobble the lady's horse himself, but this just made his task easier.

Elrond's gaze flickered from the arms of his house fluttering in the wind to the delicate royal features of the Prince of Mirkwood. He panicked, absolutely deprived of speech. Not even the confrontation with Sauron himself before the barred gates of Lindon had left him with this abject sensation of stark fear and loathing. He weighed his sword in his hands, running the tips of his fingers along the battle-worn grip, and contemplated various uses for the curved blade, none of them particularly pleasant. A despairing groan escaped his lips as he realised that none of them were really options unless he wished to live out the rest of his days with the accompaniment of Fëanor's cheering for another member of the House of Finwë suborned into kinslaying. There was no way he could turn down that ostensibly courteous offer either.

Celebrían opened her mouth at least to worm her way out of this horse-share. Even had she wished to, which indeed she did not, she would not have wished to risk the deadly looks that the fangirls were shooting towards her. However, she was pre-empted. Aragorn smiled sweetly, although his hand rested challengingly on Anduril's hilt, and turned to the princeling. "Nay, mellon-iaur. I cannot allow it to be so. It is my place to bear the standard of my father, and this I shall do gladly." He knelt in seeming obeisance before the elf-lord. "Are you all right, Adar?"

"I am now, ion- nín." He took the standard from Glorfindel's hands and smiled down at his foster-son. "Here is the standard of my house. I charge Aragorn, son of Arathorn, to bear it with honour."

"I take up this charge. May it be a beacon against the darkness, and in the night may it shine brighter than all the stars in the heavens. May…" 

But he never finished. Absinthia was balanced precariously on a small stone ledge high above the courtyard. Her black chiffon half-cloak whipped in the wind generated by the ferocious batting of her mascara-clogged eyelashes, and her heavy boots did not appear to be very practical for clinging on.

"I want to die!" she declared in a fulsome voice. "I wish that I had never been born. No one will ever love me. I don't want to be loved. I hate myself and I'm better than all of you boring idiots. I'll jump. I'll…aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh…" Lindir, pushed beyond all endurance, had sneaked up behind her and poked her with a broom handle. She plummeted towards the courtyard, brandishing her black skateboard in one hand like a demented seagull. She landed headfirst in a picnic basket, and came up spluttering, a cheese sandwich stuck to her hair. It was an improvement although she did not seem to think so. "Why did you do that you poncy freak? I was just getting to the good part and then Leggy … I mean, that other poncy bastard, was going to catch me." She tried to stand up to strike one final melodramatic pose before fainting from despair. Alas for her thespian tendencies, her bangles had caught on the meshwork of the basket and she was stuck. As she fumbled to disentangle half a ton of scrap metal, the assorted denizens of Middle-earth exchanged a mirth-filled look.

Elrond shook his head in bafflement. "Just take the wretched thing, Estel." Swinging up onto his horse, he settled Celebrían in front of him, his arms wrapped around her waist, her hands resting over his on the reins.

"See." She leaned her head back on his shoulder. "Is this not better than two horses?"

He would have answered, but he was rather busy kissing her contentedly. The morning, he thought muzzily, had just taken a turn for the better.

TBC.

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Reviews are good *nods seriously*


	18. Gold Rings

**Siege Mentality**

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Chapter Eighteen

Thanks for all the reviews.

Elf-lords and truly vast quantities of chocolate to **Nemis** for betaing this.

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The caravan wound its way through the foothills of the Misty Mountains, heading steadily along the ancient routes to Eregion. Gradually, the land rose higher and holly bushes dotted the countryside more and more frequently. 

Rhia was left suspended from one such delightful shrub by the tattered remains of her velvet evening gown. 

Souifdsofsfnasdas was rather ecstatic when Legolas volunteered to help her remove the thorns from her legs – hotpants provided really rather ineffectual protection against the perils of the wilderness.

Elrond tried to ignore the warm presence tucked against his body – really, this was the most distracting way to ride, not that he wanted to complain – and wheeled his horse round to inspect the straggling line in the hope that they might have lost more fangirls. Alas, they all appeared to be where Legolas had left them, and instead it was his daughter and his foster-son who were missing.

"Glorfindel?"

"Yes?" The Lord of the House of the Golden Flower broke off his heated conversation with Erestor.

"Please could you retrieve Arwen and Estel from … wherever they have disappeared to now. I wish to think upon it no longer." He shuddered. 

Celebrían's slender hand caressed his thigh through the heavy fabric of his breeches and he tensed involuntarily. She chuckled appreciatively and did not cease her ministrations. "You cannot blame them."

"Oh?" He was only too aware of the husky quality that had crept into his voice, and of the fact that he no longer seemed capable of caring what his wayward daughter might or might not be doing with Isildur's wretchedly unwashed heir.

"It is not as if we were setting them a particularly abstentious example."

He _meant _to point out that this was entirely different. He _meant _to show how displeased he was. In reality, he leaned closer to whisper in her ear. "And what example would that be? Would my lady wish to show a poor ignorant half-elf precisely what she means?"

"There is a grove of trees over there…"

He took her implicit invitation, and slid from the horse, grabbing a blanket as he went. The column drew up obediently, a few fangirls tumbling from their saddles incompetently, whining about their saddle-sores, while others vaulted to the ground, somersaulting as they did so. The Lord and Lady of Imladris paid very little attention to this display of arrogant and irritating virtuosity. Indeed, they paid little attention to most things for the next hour, and only returned from their chosen seclusion with great reluctance, albeit with smiles as wide as the Sundering Seas.

In their absence, the Hobbits had sat down to the third breakfast of the day, which appeared to consist of a roast haunch of venison, rabbit stew, and enough toast with strawberry jam to feed the massed Ainur after a rendition of the Music. Denethor had begun to have thoughts of chargrilled son with a small side-salad and perhaps a nice glass of wine, egged on by Celeborn. Thus Faramir was to be found halfway up an oak tree with the Lady of Rohan, who was looking particularly smug at this turn of events. Arwen and Aragorn had arrived, towed behind an exasperated Glorfindel, who had had to perform this same duty four times in the past week alone. Maglor was creeping around the camp, evidently suffering from the delusion that none could see him, prodding the fangirls with a fork and grabbing whatever Valar-forsaken trinkets they were treasuring. When he had accumulated a fair store of improbable and rather vulgar jewellery, he began to fling pieces at the fire, leaping up and down and whooping in between choruses of the Noldolantë.

With a sigh, Elrond decided that the prudent course of action would be to ignore them all. He propped his back against a mighty tree and tugged his wife into his arms. Celebrían grinned contentedly and fiddled with the fastenings of his cloak. Elladan, his eyes firmly averted, brought them cups of strong, bitter coffee that, once they had picked stray Broaches of Love-Power out of them, they sipped in a peaceful silence.

When the Elf appeared before them, Celebrían rather assumed that she had fallen asleep, so alike was his visage to a framed sketch that hung on the wall of her parents' rooms. Tall, broad-shouldered and slender, with golden hair and intelligent grey eyes set in a fair face, the very image of an Elda of old. What the artist had not depicted, however, was a certain degree of translucency. He smiled at her, and she pinched herself sharply. When that seemed to lend itself to the conclusion that she was, in fact, awake, she pinched her husband for good measure. Elrond yelped and opened his eyes. His injured confusion was rather hastily replaced by an open-mouthed stare as he gaped at the visitor, doing a passable impression of a gasping haddock. The Elf merely continued to wait, and it was still possible to see the gawping fangirls through his torso. Regrettably.

Celebrían recovered her senses first. "Mae govannen, Uncle Finrod."

The smile, which had been a little tentative, suddenly broadened. "You recognise me!"

"My mother has your self-portrait." She rose and went to enfold him in an embrace, but her arms passed straight through him.

"I am not actually here … there. This is a sending. It is most fascinating. I am in my father's halls in Tirion, and yet I appear to be in Ossiriand…" He was obviously making a heroic effort to curb his enthusiasm, and failing miserably.

Elrond regained some semblance of the power of speech, although not much. His eyes were very wide, with the glassy gaze of one who wishes to spend the next six months hibernating in a small dark place, well away from the insanity of a world that has just proved that it not only loads the dice, but shaker as well. "We are honoured by your presence, Lord Felagund."

"The pleasure is mine." Finrod peered at him. "You do look like Lúthien, and yet I can almost see more of Elu Thingol in you."

The peredhel did not know whether to be pleased or horrified by this comparison to his neurotic great-great-grandfather, and so settled for a neutral expression that made him look more like a startled deer than a wise elf-lord. "Ah … well, thank you … So … is this … are you a messenger from the Valar? If so, can you tell me if they are going to do anything about this infestation of fangirls from which we seem to be suffering? They are worse than cockroaches, I tell you, and not nearly as interesting to talk to."

"O Mandos, no, I am not a messenger from the Powers, although they say that you should watch for falling rocks and rabbits. Apart from that, this is more … ah … personal." Extreme embarrassment made itself manifest on the Noldo's face.

"Speak on."

"Well … I was wondering if you could dig a little by your left foot. I would have asked a few eons before, but there was never the chance and then…"

Elrond resigned himself to the fact that no day would ever maintain a semblance of sanity for long. Conversations with relatives who had been killed years before his birth and currently resided in the Blessed Realm were coming to be a staple of his existence, especially if they were entirely unintelligible. Perhaps it was some obscure clause in the Curse which had not been revoked. He would not put it past Fëanor, the mad bastard. Anyone who goes down in history as having catalogued his shoes alphabetically was pretty much asking to be blamed for random acts of peculiarity, especially if they then go on to become murderous psychopaths. "And what am I to look for?"

"Ah… 'tis a golden band, such as one might bear as a token of affection." Finrod ducked his head, his cheeks flaming scarlet. "'Twas given to me by Amarië of the Vanyar." He paused and seemed to listen to some unseen person. "But, melmenya…," he protested, "I swear that it was not so…" He twisted his hands together. "The Lady Amarië has bethought herself that I gave the ring to some doxy in Middle-earth, ever since I told her of the strange beings in outlandish clothing who roamed that land. Only if I can prove to her that the ring was lost and not given away will she bear my betrothal ring." He raised his eyes in mute appeal from one closet romantic to another. Celebrían aided the process by elbowing her husband in the ribs. With a sigh, he gave in. 

By the simple means of confiscating one of Sam Gamgee's saucepans and beating it repeatedly against a convenient tree-stump – which unfortunately turned out to be Mithrandir's head – he fashioned a serviceable spade. The irate Istar was not nearly so useful, and the elf-lord's progress was impeded by bolts of vermilion fire that aimed themselves repeatedly at his left eyebrow and could apparently only be diverted with pots of honey. The dig was long and arduous, further impeded by the semi-corporeal Elf hanging over one shoulder, the Dwarf kibbitzing at his feet, and the fangirls taking turns to jump into the hole to see if they could break an ankle and be rescued by Legolas. The ones who jumped in when the hole was a mere six inches deep were particularly disappointed, not to mention grubby and covered in baffled and dazzled earthworms.

At first, it could have been the waning sunlight gilding the water pooling in the bottom of the hole, but Elrond deftly cleared the gloopy mud away, revealing a simple band of butter-yellow metal, intricately inscribed with two names in the Fëanorian tengwar. Jumping lightly back to the forest floor, he dunked the ring in a pot of water to clean it, and presented it to the waiting shade. Finrod's face was a picture of relief mingled with indescribable happiness. His hand seemed to become subtly more corporeal, and he wrapped his fingers around the ring. He bowed deeply to the peredhel lord. "I am more grateful than you can imagine for this, and ever shall be." 

He seemed about to depart, but then something happened that no one had expected. Absinthia lunged for the hand that was definitely _here_ as opposed to _there_, hurling herself bodily across the clearing, her fingers clawing at his. She was bored. Leggy-kins was simply not angsty enough for her tastes, and had merely laughed at her more heartfelt rendition of the lyrics of Avril Lavigne in a voice that would have curdled miruvor. Meanwhile, this stranger's eyes were shadowed with old sorrows, deep with loss as well as laughter. She _had _to have him; he _would _be hers. Finrod, while he definitely had contrary ideas about this, was caught off balance and toppled forward, and, before their eyes, became more and more distinctly solid, until no one could doubt that there he was, sprawled in an ungraceful heap on the forest floor. 

Absinthia, having netted her prey, rolled him over onto his back and sat on him, clamping her hands around his face and attempting to kiss him sloppily on the lips. So busy was she in this endeavour that she did not notice the fair elf-maiden appear out of thin air and stand over her with an expression of outrage on her face, her small hands curled into fists. The first thing she actually noticed was when her head was yanked backwards by a fistful of mauve hair, and she was tossed away like a used lembas wrapper. Much to her chagrin, she also noticed the way Finrod's face lit up at the appearance of the newcomer as he moved swiftly to envelop her in his arms. Amarië held him off for a moment, searching his face with a penetrating gaze, and then nodded in satisfaction. She took the ring from his hand and slipped it on to his finger. His eyes were briefly questioning, but his joy was too great, and he pulled her close, his lips already warm on her own. 

Absinthia made nauseated noises and, stomping away, vowed to never look at anything male again, but no one paid much attention to her. That is, except a small slithery thing that had been the result of one of Morgoth's less successful experiments, and had been repeatedly left behind to guard the baggage train of evil. He now found himself provided with a handy packed lunch at no added cost. Even if her false eyelashes were a little chewy.

"Well." Amarië broke away from Finrod at last, although her fingers were still fondly entangled in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. "Well, Ossiriand is as pretty as you said it was."

"I am glad." He chuckled, as much to cover the emotion of the moment as anything else. "For we seem to be stranded here."

Maglor, finally aware of the situation, stopped trying to bury a long-handled spoon between Lord Celeborn's shoulder blades, and wandered over. "Cousin Findérato!"

"Makalaurë!" Fear and delight warred for a moment in Finrod's face, before he reminded himself that Maglor was not Celegorm or Curufin, and that several Ages had passed since the unfortunate incident in Nargothrond anyway. More to the point, Fëanor's two most … interesting sons, while still madder than drunken orcs, were currently being subjected to a long lecture on 'Correct Behaviour in a Modern Not-For-Bloodshed Environment – Sit Still, You Little Bastard, Or I'll Fry You Alive' by the Doomsman of the Valar. It was safe. One hand still linked with Amarië's, he embraced his cousin. "It has been a long time, and more, since last I saw you."

"Did you have to help that Beren boy?" Maglor cut to the chase with a single-mindedness of which Oromë would have been proud. "It would have been much easier if they had left the Erudamned jewel where it was."

Finrod shrugged. "The price Thingol set was not fair, and I owed his my life to Beren's line."

Amber-Rose nudged her friend Fire-Lily. "Make-whatty? I thought he was called Maglor. Or maybe it was Elros…"

"Naaah, it was Feo-something."

"What are they saying about jewels? D'you think they mean the Ring? I mean, jeez, everyone knows that it doesn't have any jewels. Now, my ring, Adsadsabdaoiya, has rubies and sapphires, and star-stones that have the power of the Gods of Middle-earth…" She broke off, forced to do so as she dodged a tree branch that Tulkas, unseen, had thrown at her, fed up of being mis-designated. 

It would be nice to think that this blow to the head brought about a refreshing bout of amnesia, and so changed her attitudes forever. It would also be wishful thinking. She lifted her head from the mud, apparently unaware of the blob of leaf mulch clinging to the end of her nose, and delivered a scathing diatribe on everyone who was not her, a diatribe that broke off only when Legolas knelt down beside her and plastered Caring Smile Number 33B across his face. 

The rest of the impromptu army turned away in revolted silence, too jaded even to exclaim.

The Great Mary Sue Seduction rattled inexorably onwards.

TBC

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What? *tries to look innocent* You didn't think that I was going to leave him out, did you?

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Reviews feed my muse and stop it eating me instead ;)


	19. Kidnapped

**Siege Mentality**

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Chapter Nineteen

Sorry for the long wait –things have been hectic.

Thanks to Nemis for betaing this.

And on with the show…

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Elrond was awoken by a delicate finger trailing down his spine, light as a feather against his bare skin. Momentarily he smiled, enjoying the sensations radiating out from that line. 

But then he was jolted from his reverie. A very big jolt, like an Oliphaunt crashing into a very pissed-off mountain. Celebrían most definitely did not have long, lacquered fingernails as hard and cruel as the cold mountain air about them, more like Smaug's talons than normal nails. 

These … implements tapped impatiently against the muscles of his shoulders, drawing initials on his skin. He uttered a muffled scream and jumped away. Or rather, he tried to do so, a process which was more than a little impeded by the strong cords binding his ankles and wrists. They paid a definite resemblance to a deeply unpleasant hybrid of baling twine and Orc guts, and were tied in such tight and impenetrable knots that his hands had turned a violent shade of blue. The Elf was unable to see his feet but he had a sneaking suspicion that they would match the sky above in hue. Certainly they had not been this numb since he and Elros had drunk themselves into a stupor on moonshine when they were but thirty years of age and been found by a panic-stricken Gil-galad asleep under an upturned row-boat. 

And although he was lying in a patch of snow on the lower slopes of Caradhras, it was not the same patch of snow as he had fallen asleep on. For one thing it was a good deal colder, lacking not only a blanket but also the comforting presence of a certain silver-haired elf-maiden.

He groaned and tried to squirm away from his … captor. The only response was a chuckle made throaty by far too much Malibu, and a contented bounce against his back. He groaned again, louder and more exasperated this time, and bent his neck at an exceedingly odd angle to be able to look at the girl. Once he clapped eyes on her, he decided that he would have liked Círdan to have put his eyes out after all, following that incident with the iced buns. Her hair was a painful shade of platinum blond, approximating Celebrían's silver fairness yet managing almost to be its apotheosis. It fluoresced in the bright light of the mountains, stinging eyes within a five-league radius, and paid a greater resemblance to hair that had been treated to an unexpectedly drastic chemical treatment than the Lady of Imladris' brilliant shade. It fell past her shoulders in an extraordinary wave, as per the conventions. Alas for her dramatic intentions, it was also a mass of split ends which would have been greatly improved by a bowl of custard dumped over her head, or a good, swift decapitation.

Elrond had a sneaking suspicion that by the end of this encounter his wife would be more than happy to oblige with the latter.

He met her glaring green eyes, of a shade which matched that of Galadriel's face during one of her ring-of-power-induced tantrums, and winced. Once, long ago, he had seen eyes like that set in Annatar's face as he stood before the gates of Lindon, pleading his case with a sweetly melodic voice, his hands moving hurriedly to emphasis his arguments. Then, as now, the gaze had professed great friendship, open and lucid and charming, but beneath, in the depths of the irises, the soul twitched and shuffled like something revolting in the bottom of a stagnant puddle. One of the things that puts people off microscopes and indeed sight for life. Yes, one of those.

"Hi, my name's Relia," she declared brightly, shoving her bosom forward like a pair of overcooked potatoes, pale and voluminous. Elrond noted with a nervous twitch that they were but barely covered by a bustier the colour of congealed blood, accompanied by a skirt which could be more accurately described as a slender belt, a pair of laddered fishnets, and silver stilettos which had speared deep holes in the snowdrifts – all of which looked exceptionally interesting with a fur-lined parka and a fisherman's hat which she had found in a cupboard in Imladris.

"Where am I?" he croaked, finding his voice weak, his throat sore. "More importantly, why?"

"Carad-thingy." She smiled like an electric storm in the upper atmosphere when Manwë was in a vile mood after a row with Varda on the precise hue a sunset should be. "We're just a bit further up and … er … left-ish than everyone else. And I brought you here. I rescued you from your evil wife."

Try though he might to live up to the idea of being as kind as summer, Elrond felt his blood begin to seethe like a cauldron of mutton stew at this description of his wife. "If I were you I would not use those words to describe the Lady Celebrían," he said curtly, "for her father would not take it kindly." He did not add that Celeborn would have to stand in line behind him before he did anything.

"Ah, 'the Lady'," she pounced immediately. "See, you don't care about her, otherwise you wouldn't have called her that."

Elrond resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. "I chose, although I am thus humiliated, not to denigrate my wife my wife by referring to her familiarly to one such as you."

Relia almost purred. "Wouldn't you like to learn what I am?" She struggled to her feet, sinking several inches into the soft new-fallen snow, and tottering slightly like a skiff in high winds. "I shall be your love and bear you away from all this tedious shit to live in a palace in the far East, and you shall bathe in scented milk twice a day." She had absorbed that idea from a book and had neither the brains nor the common sense to wonder about how one might smell after bodily immersion in dairy products.

"And what of the Ring?" Elrond asked, more from the general principle that one must humour lunatics than anything else. And anyway, although talking to her was a strain on his fabled patience, it was nothing to what looking at her was doing to his eyes. He felt his eyeballs sauteeing gently at the abomination. "Care you nothing for the fate of the world?"

"Forget them; I want to have sex with you." Relia pouted. "C'mon, Elly. Let's do it." She stared fixedly at the arch of his eyebrows, saliva virtually dripping from her fangirl fangs.

"No." He edged backwards. It was one thing to be courageous in the face of all the legions of Mordor, but this was something else entirely. Already knowing the futility of the action, he tugged at the bonds confining his wrists. His grey eyes widened with anger and fear alike as he shrank back into the snow, struggling. Alas for his composure, he looked very appealing indeed, his black hair vibrant against the snow, his long legs curled up protectively. The very finest trickle of cold sweat, the product of more fear than experienced by your average lightning-struck small fluffy animal, worked its way down the side of his face. Even as he cursed it, Relia all but swooned: a mussed, sweaty peredhel all of her very own; her wildest dreams had just come true. Life was perfect, although admittedly those dreams had not tended to include the desperate expression of panic in his grey eyes.

"Pleeease…" she wheedled, extending that single syllable to truly amazing lengths lengths. 

"I am married."

"I bet I'm better than her."

Elrond decided that he would far rather face Morgoth armed only with a knapsack of crusty bread rolls and dressed only in mismatched gloves than contend with this determined terror with narrow, calculating eyes and hands which begun to wander across him in the most disconcerting fashion as she sank back down beside him. "I doubt that. And it matters not, for she is my wedded wife, and my love for her is too great to be shared with the world, in word or in deed. I demand that you free me."

"Don't want to. I'm going to _make_ you love me."

The greatest loremaster in Middle-earth gave up on the persuasive potential of rational thought at this point and began searching for a sharp stone under his bound hands with which to saw at the string. Alas, the heavy snowfall had long since covered any such useful object. He sighed and cursed under his breath, wondering for the millionth time how desperate the situation would become before he would feel justified in utilising Vilya. It was already becoming tempting, and if it had not been for his concerns over the fate of the One Ring he would have called on it. As it was, he was reduced to feeling like a terrified, trapped elfling who _knew_ that he would be stuck in the old trunk until the end of Arda, and, if Eru Ilúvatar was as forgetful as he, beyond. Even the trunk seemed more appealing, in fact, but Relia took his hyperventilation as excitement, and beamed, bouncing up and down. 

Somewhere in the far distance, an avalanche started.

"How did you capture me?" he asked wearily, hoping that conversation with this madwoman with shoes which could be used as offensive weapons might postpone any unfortunate incidents and allow him to break his bonds by sheer brute force.

"All those idiots were sleeping." She tossed her head haughtily. It had been a hard day's trek, struggling up the lower slopes of the mountain with Maglor burbling and sighing happily at the jewel-like glint of the sunlight on the snow, while Celeborn interrupted his glaring only to converse with Denethor on the problems of finding decent childcare. But rather than admit to the same exhaustion that everyone else felt, even the Elves, Relia had consumed enough ProPlus tablets to feed an Orcish army for a year's hard march. "I stuck a dart in you with this icky smelling stuff on it to tranquilise you." 

She retrieved the dart, which did indeed smell noxious, from her bag, and waved it round merrily, but Elrond paid no attention to it. "Celebrían…? Did you…?" His tightly controlled temper slipped from his control as panic flooded through him, and he felt the strands of the string binding him begin to part and fray beneath his frenzied actions.

"Oh, she's fine. My friend Leggy sneaked in beside her and she didn't even realise you were gone."

Elrond shuddered at the thought of his beloved wife waking up in the arms of the worst letch in Middle-earth – and that was something for a region which also contained Glorfindel of Gondolin. And then he shuddered more at the thought of her ready temper when she realised what had happened. All things considered, it was a miracle the Misty Mountains were still here. Instinctively, he reached out for her with his mind, soothing her anger.

__

Where are you, El-nín? Oh, the wrath of Morgoth shall be nothing to what I intend to do when I find that girl. Legolas found the whole fiasco so amusing he could not stop himself telling me. Although that might have had something to do with the dagger at his throat.

The elf-lord received a brief, hastily cut-off glimpse of Legolas' hand being removed from Celebrían's breast at knife-point, and vowed to find a deep, spider-infested ravine in which to deposit the princeling as soon as possible. Possibly a deep, spider-infested ravine with two-foot metal spikes.

Meanwhile, Relia, who had been ordering him to strip, not having quite enough brain cells to work out that it would be rather difficult to do so when bound hand and foot and deposited in two feet of snow, noticed that she had rather less than his full attention. Having watched his every move in a seething fury of jealousy for the past weeks, she knew that particular vague look, and, despite having the, intellectual capacity of a cucumber sandwich, she was able to guess who was the centre of his thoughts.

She whipped out the jewel of Asaloiliand, which in actual fact was a rather grubby lump of cubic zircona, she brandished it in his face. "By the power of Asaloiliand the Fair, I command you to stop! I won't let you talk to her."

Elrond's eyes slowly crossed as he tried to focus on the gem. Tentatively, he probed it with the very edge of his consciousness, tensely awaiting a savage blow of power. He breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed, his eyes uncrossing; it was more inert than a Brandybuck after several barrels of strong mead.

"That has no power to command. In fact it has no power at all."

"Oh." Relia looked downcast, and he had a very momentary flash of sympathy for her. But only very, very momentary. "The woman in the junk shop – ah, I mean, the bazaar in Minas Tirith told me it was very powerful, and made by Sauron's wife."

Elrond wondered if Morgoth would like company in the Void. Even a mad, bad, and quite frankly ridiculous Ainu with a penchant for jewels and singing girls would be better than this, and certainly not quite as soul-destroying. The next moment, he thought that perhaps the Valar had been listening to his thoughts, for he could see nothing but darkness and dancing spots of light, far off in the distance. Squinting, he could see that they were fragments of a snow-covered landscape, coming closer and closer… He became aware of a throbbing pain in one temple and a trickle of blood making its way down his face.

Relia, coming to the conclusion that there was nothing to do which would make the putative Jewel of Aasaloiliand into a functional magical weapon, had chosen the other option open to her and thumped him on the side of the head with it with all the force of her strength. "See? See? I'm invincible!" The flames of madness in her eyes leaped higher and she began chuckling like a pair of asthmatic bellows.

There was a scream and a thud as Peony jumped out from behind a large lump of granite and pounced on the other fangirl. No one hurt _her _Elrond and got away with it. The camp had been in uproar when it was discovered that the Lord of Imladris was missing, and as search parties were dispatched, it had been all too easy to slip away from the Elves assigned to keep the fangirls corralled together and go to look for him herself. Especially as the Elves seemed more interested in each other than in the fangirls. Very, very much more interested.

She hefted her HTML manual high above her and brought it down with a resounding clonk. Relia collapsed in the snow, unconscious. 

Bobbing from one foot to the other with joy at her victory, Peony freed his hands, and soon he had recovered enough circulation to be able to free his own feet, although the pins and needles reached epic proportions which should have been remembered in song and story for Ages to come.

"Thank you." He bowed gracefully, tugging his cloak around himself and wondering what in the name of Mandos he was supposed to do with an unconscious fangirl. Perhaps there were some hungry wolves...

"Oh, my poor, brave peredhel…" Peony took a step closer to him and smiled up at him. "You must have been sooo brave…"

He began to suffer a twinge of nervousness, but held still, praying to any of the Valar who were not too drunk to listen that he had not heard _that _note in her voice.

"How you must have suffered," she continued, although in truth she had been rather more interested in how glamorous and noble he looked, even sprawled on the ground, his eyes flashing in anger, than in any torments he might have undergone. "Let me make it up to you."

She closed the lingering distance between them and, pressing her lips to his in a soggy kiss, let one hand travel down between their bodies, fingers reaching for the laces of his breeches, warm and slightly sticky from the chocolate she had been eating while she waited.

Elrond sprang back, breaking her grasp, his sword, which Relia had foolishly not deprived him of, already in his hand. Memories of some of the more frightening fangirls whom he had encountered during the siege of Orodruin flickered before his eyes and he had to shake his head vigorously to dispel visions of the more interesting uses for Aeglos which they had suggested. Really, to even think that he and Gil-galad would… And that they would with the fangirls participating…

This time it was Celebrían who soothed him, her mind light and firm against his.

__

We will be there soon, meleth-nín.

He took strength from her words, and turned his attention back to Peony, who was looking at him with an expression like a kicked baby Balrog – furious and upset at once. And entirely capable to setting fire to his shoes. She pouted even more, reflecting that at least Hobbits only brandished turnips or the occasional head of cauliflower when propositioned, not highly polished bits of potentially lethal metal. It really was most tiresome to be threatened – but perhaps it was just an obscure Elvish mating ritual and he would jump her any second…

"Oooh, kinky…" she murmured throatily, shifting so as to show him more of her cleavage than he had ever had a desire to see. 

He might be accounted a great warrior, he might have survived the War of Wrath and the breaking of Beleriand, he might have lost more of those close to his heart than it was thought possible to bear, but even Elrond had a point at which his resolve and bravery failed. As her words sank through the levels of his consciousness, passing all the tests which his disbelieving brain imposed on his horrified ears, he broke and ran.

Light and fleet of foot, he sped over the snow, following the barely visible path, navigating by dead reckoning alone back towards the camp, with Peony hot on his heels, cursing and stumbling as the foolishness of platforms in the wilderness was impressed upon her. The wind whistled past his ears; the ground rumbled and rolled as if the mountain was conspiring against him, but still he pushed onwards, the steel bright in his hand.

Such was the speed of his descent, in fact, that he had reached the camp before he knew it, colliding with Finrod, whose head was bent over a volume on philosophy, discussing some abstract concept with Amarië while they – very technically - guarded the fangirls. 

The Noldorin Elf put out one hand to steady his assailant. Seeing who it was, his clever face broke into a wide grin. "We feared you lost, kinsman."

"I very nearly was," Elrond said grimly. "These fangirls…"

"Could we not abandon them somewhere?" Amarië asked, casting a poisonous look in the direction of one of the girls who was ogling her betrothed.

"We could…"

But at that moment, Celebrían struggled into sight. Snow dusted her silver hair, there was a smudge of dirt on one cheek, and she was holding onto her father by her collar, but she had never looked more beautiful to Elrond.

Quickly he went to her, enfolding her in his arms. 

"I really should not let you out of my sight," she muttered, pulling his head down for a kiss.

"A very good idea."

After a long time, he raised his head regretfully. "May I ask why you were leading your father round by his collar, meleth- nín?"

Celebrían rolled her eyes. "He tried to bite Maglor again."

"AHEM!"

They swivelled, and saw Peony standing on the edge of the group, her face red with petulance and cold, but mainly petulance. 

"I'm going to go and sit on top of the mountain until you realise you love me and want to snog me." She stamped one foot for emphasis, and headed off back up Caradhras.

"That seals it." Elrond pinched the bridge of his nose. "We must take the road through Moria."

Celebrían assented. "I for one have no intention of going over any mountain which has a deranged harpy sitting on top." And she kissed Elrond again, just to make her point. 

Or something.


	20. The Pit of Fangirls

****

Siege Mentality

****

Chapter Twenty

Thanks to **Lalaith** and **Isis** for betaing this, and to all of you for reviewing.

Elrond rolled his eyes as he watched the fangirls jostling each other for positions near to Legolas in the column as they made their way in single file through the passages of Moria. They had only just begun the journey through the dark, and already all sense of sanity had clearly departed with the last of the light, a gloomy reality which was only exacerbated by the excessive cheerfulness of the hobbits, glad indeed to find that they had not been eaten by the Watcher in the water. Finrod Felagund had not been as lucky - almost. He had been so busy examining the construction of the west-gate of Moria, and approving of Celebrimbor's use of _ithildin_ in such a delicate style that he had not noticed the tentacle locked around his ankle until he was dangling upside down by one ankle, thirty feet in the air over the monster's mouth. Only Amarië's judicious application of that wonder of technology known as a very sharp sword had saved the lord of drowned Nargothrond from meeting his second - and considerably less heroic death - at the hands of another fell beast.

Amarië was currently checking him for signs of internal bleeding while keeping up a grumbling monologue on the current running total of times she had had to rescue him from a dire fate. "See? I knew it. No wonder you were eaten by a wolf..."

The Elda grinned. "I know, melmenya, I know."

"Lackwitted Elf..." But no one could have mistaken the tone of her voice for actual exasperation.

Elrond sighed and busied himself with avoiding the boulders and chasms which lay in his path. Somewhere ahead, Gandalf was grumbling, his staff clacking against the floor as he walked. He could hear Celebrían's voice, gentle now, in marked contrast to her earlier acerbic tone, pointing out to the wizard that it was not entirely within his remit as a messenger of the Lords of the West to blast all fangirls into small, sticky puddles, much though it seemed to be in everyone's best interests - except of course the fangirls. But then, their opinions could scarcely be said to count – for if they did, Manwë Sûlimo would be ousted as Lord of Arda by Legolas Thranduilion, and the land of Valinor would become little more than an exceedingly large excuse for a mass orgy.

Somewhere, Glorfindel was teaching a very loud drinking song to the sons of the Steward, draining a flask of miruvor, and surreptitiously groping Erestor. Surprisingly enough, Elrond's chief counsellor did not seem to mind. It had been days since he had been found up a tree hiding from the persistent attention of the Balrog-slayer. Of course, the lack of trees growing in the dank darkness of Khazad-dûm might have something to do with this, but Glorfindel very much doubted this, and his trademark smirk spread across his face. He was a very happy Balrog-slayer indeed. The Steward himself had been foiled in the process of barbecuing his second son again the previous day, caught while basting the seriously unimpressed young man with a noxious mixture of herbs and garlic. Consequently, he was in a mood to deliver bad news to all and sundry, whether they wanted it or not. For the Master of the Last Homely House, he had a special treat: relaying intelligence of every single time that the Lady Arwen had been seen sneaking off into a dwarven storeroom with the heir of Isildur. Catalogued chronologically and cross-referenced with the theoretical alignment of the stars. Updated twice an hour.

Elrond wondered if there might be any remedies for severe nausea stashed somewhere in the ominous depths of the dwarf realm. He really had not needed that piece of news to be relayed to him. Especially not when arranged chronologically, with times of departure and re-emergence noted in the cramped, precise handwriting of the seriously demented.

And behind him, the Elf heard voices raised in a new, but all too familiar altercation.

"...And moreover, I do not see why I must call this wretched pit a city..."

"And I do not see why I must call you aught but an idiot, Master Elf." There was a clatter as Gimli emphasised his point with a well-aimed blow of his axe at an overhanging ledge of rock. What the rock might have done to offend him, no one ever worked out. But it was universally agreed that if he had, in fact, not aimed quite so well, and had actually been intending to do serious damage to the head of Lord Celeborn, it was entirely justified. "This was the great dwarf realm of Khazad-dûm!"

"Great? There were better privies in Menegroth than the greatest of all the halls of Dwarrowdelf. In fact, there were better broom cupboards."

"Well, perhaps if Master Thingol had not spent so much time in them with his wife, he might have had enough energy left not to be a raging idiot and try to keep our Nauglamir from us!"

"Coward!" Celeborn wisely decided on this more general insult, rather than an attempt to refute either allegation. After all, it had been true that the magnificent broom cupbaords of the city of Menegroth had all too frequently contained the King and Queen of Doriath in addition to the more usual assortment of brooms and mops. 

With a yell, the Sindarin lord threw himself at his Dwarven challenger, accidentally crushing several fangirls against the walls in the process. The fangirls were too busy ogling Legolas and exclaiming over the blondness of his hair either to notice or to care.

Elrond began to wonder if the frown on his face would become permanent. Much more and he would start to bear a striking resemblance to a thunderstorm - and a particularly unhappy thunderstorm at that. Setting the lantern he carried down, he strode forward, and grasped his father-in-law by the scruff of his neck and pulled him upright. With his other hand, he grabbed a fistful of dwarf mail and dangled Gimli in mid-air. The dwarf struggled like a caged ferret. "Lemme go. I'll bite his elf ears off." 

"Ha! You would not dare to!"

Elrond shook them vigorously to get their attention, and was rewarded with two startled if rather cross-eyed stares.

"Traitor!" Celeborn wailed. "I knew I should not have let Celebrían marry you."

"As I recall, you did not - but my wife and yours are both possessed of considerable will power, and Brí would not be denied, and her mother agreed." Elrond smiled softly. Even being threatened at swordpoint by his new father-in-law, whose face had begun to fluoresce the colour of slightly stale beetroot salad, had not really been able to ruin his wedding-day. Of course, Celebrían, noticing what was happening, had sicced her mother on Celeborn, and then dragged her new husband off to a secluded niche...

He was shaken back to the rather less pleasant present - quite literally - by his aforesaid father-in-law's attempt to bite him. As he winced, watching the semicircle of red-marks appear on the back of his arm, the dwarf made good use of the distraction to squirm away, shedding his mail shirt like an oddly shaped and very ginger snake. Alas for both the protagonists' intentions, it was not to be. The strength of the lord of Imladris might lie in words and in lore, and not in the weapons of war, but he had not forgotten that once, long ago, he had been the herald of the High King. Strong in hew and in sinew, hale as a warrior in the young strength of his years, he held fast. Perhaps the experience of raising three elflings and numerous Dunedain fosterlings of adventurous ilk might have had something to do with this, but either way, several fangirls of slightly less Legolas-centric tendencies swooned and fell through a gaping hole in the floor at this show of strength and dexterity, never to be seen again.

What a shame.

"Enough. We take the Ring to the fires of Mount Doom. Is it not enough that we are beleaguered by this plague of half-witted girls?" He inclined his head at the fast-disappearing stilettos and heinous nail varnish of Asfula, Diabeta, and RoseDiamond. "Are you determined that Sauron should regain the Ring through the disunity of the company, Gimli, son of Glóin? Lord Celeborn?"

But they never had the chance to answer. Elrond felt a tap on his shoulder and turned, already feeling a great surge of dread.

Legolas stood there, smiling and preening like a particularly offensive parrot. "A problem, my lord?"

"Not at all." Elrond had not yet forgotten that Legolas had crept into Celebrían's bed in his place, nor was he likely to until Morgoth managed to jerry-rig an escaping-from-the-Void device, and brought the end of the world. His eyebrows, rather impressive at the best of times, achieved an angle reminiscent of a crow in flight.

"I thought that you might require some assistance," the princeling continued, shooting Rialiaoaoaoaoa his most charming smile. She fainted - although she stayed right where she was as her corset did not allow for so much movement as a swoon.

"Not at all," Elrond repeated through gritted teeth. Releasing the dwarf, he grabbed the lantern he had set aside, and began to propel the elf-lord to the head of the line. There was but one creature this side of the Dimrill Dale who could constrain the Lord Celeborn.

He complained bitterly, but at last they stood before Celebrían, who greeted her husband with a smile, and her father with rather less affection. "What now?"

"That accursed dwarf..."

"I apologise, hervess, but I have a favour to ask of you." Elrond took her hand, and she squeezed his comfortingly.

"I suppose I am to nursemaid my father?"

"It seems the best possible option. Until we can deliver him up to your mother, trussed up like a dressed goose," he added under his breath.

"That makes three times this week!" Celebrían exclaimed in exasperation, prodding her errant father in the chest. "Why must I always be your guard, Adar?"

Celeborn at least had the grace to look abashed, and soon he was walking before the Lord and Lady of Imladris, with a rope hastily fashioned from his cloak around his neck.

"This way we know where he is," Celebrían pointed out cheerfully.

"This way he is far too close to you and me," Elrond said sourly.

"I thought you had delivered him up to my care..."

"Aye, but I had rather hoped that we might pass the burden off for some space of time," he murmured in her ear. "I would have you alone for an hour or more."

Celebrian shivered happily. "And I you, meleth-nin." She paused, and her eyes were distant, gazing out across the years. "The last time I took passage of the Mines, I knew you only by reputation."

"And what did you expect to find?"

"A grumpy half-elf with his head ever wedged in a book."

"And did he live up to your expectations?"

"Aye," she teased, "and I loved him very much for it."

Elrond linked his arm around her waist, laughing, forgetting even the poisonous stare that Celeborn shot their way, and so they passed onwards, through the ruin of the dwarf kingdom of Dwarrowdelf.

Somewhere behind them, there was a cackle and squawk as Legolas made another only too willing conquest from the massed ranks of his fangirls. Further yet beyond that, there came the sound of the Lady Éowyn defending her claim to the Lord Faramir at swordpoint. Some of the fangirls who had gravitated towards the Steward's second son were awfully insistent in their conviction that he could not possibly be in love with anyone who did not have three-inch long fingernails lacquered in an interesting shade of mauve which defied description, and quite possibly the laws of physics. Unfortunately for them, it was a conviction which neither Éowyn nor Faramir shared. And while the Gondorian tended simply to back away muttering and blushing, Éowyn was rather more direct and … ah … strenuous in her methods. And her sword, unlike those of the fangirls, was not so laden done with encrusted gems and ornately pointless twiddles as to be useless as anything other than a bludgeon. And, unlike them, she knew which end you held, and which end you stuck in people. Which is always an advantage. SilveryLisa's attempt to draw her particularly garish piece of tack-o-rama had merely resulted in a large hole in the floor, a bruise to Gandalf's crinkled forehead, and an even larger hole in her foot. Meanwhile, the only consequence that Éowyn had felt was a severe attack of the hiccups from laughing without pause for three hours.

As the motley band staggered its way along in various states of confusion, desperation, and undress, the hobbits began to sing, loudly, and with no reference to any conceivable tune whatsoever. They had, it was determined, discovered the secret stash of brandy laid down by Dúrin the Deathless. Miraculously, it had survived the depredations of time, and of the orc-host. But even the cunning of the eldest dwarf could not match a ravening hobbit-horde, and the Ringbearer and his companions were soon bouncing from wall to wall in a state of extreme inebriation, and playing hopscotch over the lesser chasms. Occasionally, they would fall silent, and some luckless Elf would have to retrieve them from some dank hole into which they had wandered in their perpetual search for mushrooms. In fact, all they ever found were growths of luminous green fungus of the same noxious colour as Retifilisasma's eyes, and one extremely dead Dwarf with a mug of beer in one skeletal hand and an expression of extreme surprise on his face.

Elrond was vaguely perplexed to notice how many times the task of retrieval fell to him, and seriously contemplated the idea of forsaking stoic endurance in favour of a good old-fashioned grumble.

Of course, the procession was extremely noisy and about as interested in stealthy cautions as a herd of stampeding oliphaunts being chased by men with red-hot pokers, and so the inevitable happened. The orcs attacked.

Strangely enough, it almost seemed to be a relief from the antics of the fangirls. And at least Pippin stopped rattling off some of Tom Bombadil's more gobsmackingly awful poetry in a drunken falsetto and busied himself with hiding. Admittedly, he chose to hide inside Balin's tomb, and began to scream hoarsely as he realised that tombs do indeed contain dead things, but then that was his choice, and who are we to argue? And anyway, in between awe-inspiringly awful verses, he had done a great service to all Middle-earth by dropping random fangirls down a deserted shaft.

Meanwhile, several of the fangirls performed their only known service to the Free Peoples by blinding several dozen orcs each with their amazing multi-coloured hair. The goblins fled wailing into the night, except for one, who decided that the hue of Matrioshka's hellish eyes was an exact complement to his own, and fell rather desperately in love with her.

Celeborn was let off his leash to work off some of his excess spleen, and mercifully the swing of the battle kept him very far away from Maglor.

A few fangirls decided that the hue and cry of battle was precisely the cover they needed to dispose of the inconvenience known as Celebrían. They were confronted with the prospect of an Elrond who was seriously unamused, and a short, sharp collision with a wall.

Eventually, the orcs gave up. Their leader was in luuurve with a fangirl, and they had an assortment of bruises in tasteful shades of aubergine and mauve. And even orcs could only stand a certain amount of exposure to the wonder which was Leggykins in his best seduce-and-destroy mode. It could be said that they crept away whimpering like a pack of kicked rabbits. But only if bunnies were evil and scabrous, with teeth in serious need of attention from a dentist, and the tendency to spit and swear at the drop of a hobbit.

Dusting bits of broken orc off the brim of his extremely silly hat, Gandalf stomped ahead, muttering about getting to the great bridge of Khazad-dûm before anyone thought of anything else stupid to do or the world ended. His flailing staff concussed a score of fangirls, but as this made no difference to their intellectual capacity, which had the combined power of that of a dying halibut, no one really noticed.

Yet as he drew level with Elrond, the peredhel felt a melodramatically precise pang of cold dread. But to stop where they were would mean spending even more time in Moria's darkness with drunken hobbits, lecherous fangirls, and the Abominable Elfman … ah, we mean Legolas.

So they went on as before, a grumbling, slightly bloodied and bruised procession, and suddenly the great chasm loomed before them, the Bridge spanning it like a thread of spider-silk, although mercifully rather less likely to end in the maw of one of the children of Ungoliant, unless something had gone seriously wrong with Vairë's knitting.

The hobbits were picked up and lobbed across the void, with three points being awarded if the throw knocked a fangirl unconscious, and two if it only broke her nails. Celebrían surprised everybody by managing to render three insensible with one throw, and the expression on her face was one of gleeful triumph.

The fangirls trooped dutifully across with their eyes fixed on Legolas who walked ahead of them. Aall except one, who decided to impress the princeling with her prowess at tapdancing and failed to notice the fact that there was actually a fall of several thousand feet beneath her. So ended Depressia in a small, damp mark on the rocks far below, rather like strawberry jam, in fact.

And then it all went horribly, horribly wrong – so horribly wrong that Morgoth put aside his Giant Evil Dark Lord's Bumper Puzzle with only Utumno left unfinished, and settle down for some quality viewing, giggling to himself occasionally. 

Pear-shaped. The peariest of pear-shapes. The shape of Yavanna's giant prize pear which was the prototype for all other pears.

Telia saw her chance for glory, to really make a difference, to do something special. And, of course, to have soppy songs composed about her elfin beauty by Legolas. She even had a sheaf of paper at the ready for him to write them down on, and several suggestions as to possible tunes. She turned, grinning wildly, teetering on her high-heeled patent crimson leather boots, which clashed horribly with her violet lace ballgown. Her smile focused itself on Boromir, who blinked worriedly at her. She took a few steps towards him, rested her hands on his shoulders, and pushed. 

But Telia had little in the way of sense, her sight was obscured by her false lashes, and she had failed to notice another figure moving in the gloom. To be honest, she would not have noticed an oliphaunt trampling her to death when her thoughts were fixated on Legolas and his … ah … bow.

Denethor has shouldered his way forwards looking for Faramir, who was currently entirely unaware of the fact that he had once more become the target of his father's barbecue fixation. And so the Steward caught the force of the fangirl's blow, toppling head over arrogant heels into the abyss, a seriously petulant expression on his face. 

"How dare you?" he squawked resentfully, clutching at her sleeve. And as he fell, he thought he saw baleful red eyes in the darkness, and shared a look of mutual comprehension with the demon of Morgoth, grinning deviantly.

The sons of the Steward watched his abrupt descent with wide, horrified eyes. But they did not have long, as the scarlet eyes that Denethor had seen were coming closer. In fact, the Balrog had overslept, and was hurrying through the darkness, trying to disentangle his flaming whip from his wings at the same time as applying Evil Aftershave and drinking a cup of Evil Coffee.

"Hello," the Balrog said cheerfully, brushing Evil Muesli from his chest and casually setting fire to one particularly obnoxious fangirl, to no one's dismay. "Who would like to be eaten first?"

"Go away," Gandalf snapped.

"What, no 'secret fire' talk?" the Balrog asked.

"Go away," Gandalf repeated irritably, rolling his eyes. "Bugger off. Shoo. Scram. Skidaddle."

"Hmmm…" The Balrog ignored him pointedly and looked about. "I think I shall eat … you first." He stared at Elrond. "Yes, you look particularly edible."

Elrond raised an eyebrow.

"He is mine to eat, and mine alone," Celebrían hissed, a remark which Elrond would never tire of reminding her of, no matter how many years passed. However, as it provided her with plenty of opportunities involving Elrond, honey, and cream, she did not complain that much. Or at all, come to think of it.

The Balrog giggled. "Tough luck."

"You shall take none among us, foul fiend."

"Oh, be quiet, Olórin. It is entirely my own business if I chose to eat a few of your pet Elves."

"You shall not pass." Gandalf placed himself squarely between the Balrog and the Company, and smote the bridge with his staff. "Oh, bloody Mandos, I might as well…" He grimaced. "I am the servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire shall not avail you, flame of Udûn. You shall not pass."*

The bridge crumbled at his feet, and the Balrog toppled into the chasm, swearing profusely. But as the world is not really a very pleasant place, and the demands of storytelling are even nastier, his lash curled around Gandalf's ankle and hauled him over the brink in a whirl of grey cloak and very pissed-off wizard.

The Company stood in shocked silence, and Elrond found that he was trembling.

And then, on the farther side of the great chamber, a clear, white light kindled itself, growing brighter and ever brighter. Everyone's grip on their weapons tightened, but soon a figure of majesty was revealed. 

Manwë Sûlimo.
    
    Again.

The Lord of the Winds, the greatest of the Valar, was gazing into the pit with an expression of sheer exasperation on his fair face. "Oh! Bugger! I told him to be careful, but would he listen?" His words rang through the chamber, and when the echoes had faded, he was gone, leaving a sacramental whiff of irritation behind.

TBC.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

* Direct quotation from _Fellowship of the Ring._


End file.
